Herons are modern day dinosaurs, incredible hunting skills, they look so elegant with their long thin beak, but that beak is a powerful weapon, part harpoon, part dagger, part jaws, it's like a Swiss army beak.
Birds are coelurosaurs, known as feathered dinosaurs wich includes, dromeosaurids, oviraptorosaurs, tyrannosaurids, Megaraptors etc. Birds are the only coelurosaurs to survive.
The trick is to swallow the Gopher head first...then they just "scamper" on down to the stomach...Yikes! I think the Great Blue Heron stabbed the Gopher at the base of his skull and spinal cord = Quick Death...
A gopher swallowed conscious and struggling won't "scamper down to the stomach"... it would try to burrow through the heron's tough (catfish and sculpin spine resistant) gullet with its' very powerful and heavily clawed front feet, and tear through with its' huge exposed incisors. A heron feeding young does not pass most food directly to the stomach, but carries prey in its' crop (the base of the gullet) to its' nest or fledglings. Dangerous prey that isn't killed or fatally paralyzed by a heron's first capture strike is finished off with one or two sharp bites to the neck. Defenseless small fishes, frogs, etc are swallowed conscious (not necessarily the same as "being eaten alive) and struggling.
I’m pretty sure she literally stabbed it through the back of its head, maybe the brain. I have seen this heron catch a lot of gophers such as the most recent one a couple days ago. She deliberately killed it with a bill to back of head. She is really good at disabling them quickly. It seems every other heron has the prey struggle longer
@@jimzenor9148 Interesting. Glad you clarified this here about the beak. I was wondering why no squirming and/or shrieking from the gopher. That strike was basically a kill-shot as well as snapping that gopher up.
Wow! Thank you so very much for this work. When I was a kid in south Florida I used to watch these birds and many others for hours on end through my granddad’s WWII field glasses… anyone who wants to know about the non-avian theropod dinosaurs and their likely behavior? Watch these avian dinosaurs and we’ve got a good idea . Thanks again, liked and subscribed ❤️
I was prospecting in the San Gabriel mountains. It was after a flood so the river had risen and was muddy. I saw a heron watching this one spot be the rapids. I fish too so I thought this might be interesting. Ten minutes later his head shot into the water and he came up with a fish. As he shot up, his feet went flying out from under, the fish flew out of his mouth back to the river and he got his ass soaked. When he came up he was pissed. Flapping his wings ,jumping screaming. The frustration measurable. I could hear the cuss words. I've also seen them creep up to the waters edge, look, slowly back up and shift to another spot and repeat. Being a Fisherman also, sometimes he'll glare at you like you're screwing up his fishing spot. I just tell him '" look, you've tried for half an hour, give someone else a chance" and he'll move up river.
That’s funny. I’ve had similar experience with this heron. She is my favorite subject. She is very emotional it seems. She will squawk or open her bill when she misses. I try to not scare her gophers but she gets pissy at me if I interrupt her hunting.
Yeah that was a perfect shot. You can see in the slow motion that she really zeroed in on that gopher. It seems they ususally do hit them in a vital spot but not always.
Just shows why we need birds. Not only do they kill insects but the big ones like this blue heron attack and eat a variety of rodents. We need more blue herons.
the patience of the heron beat my own!! Amazing how the heron is steady and pounces on the oblivious gopher. Glad you were able to catch a glimpse of this amazing animal!
I lived nearby for 9 years and used to walk weekly through different parts of the park. I witnessed the birds successfully catch their prey and devour it. Good work.
Nice catch. When I was a kid, in Florida, I often watched big herons hunting lizards, snakes, other birds, mice, etc, really far from the water, they would just stroll the lawns and eat like they were at an automatic sushi vendor.. really awesome birds.
When I lived in So.Florida, we use to have a big lake/reserve by our back yard. I was always amazed watching the blue herons slowly stalking their prey and eating it. Seen them eat everything, from small ducks to fish and even large snakes!!!!!!! Nature is incredible
Paleontologists say that birds are actually dinosaurs. If that is true and we were alive during the reign of dinosaurs, which we were NOT! Then we would have never stood a change of us becoming us! Just look at how birds hunt and eat and what speed most of them have. We would have never stood a chance against birds or T. Rex or velociraptor! We got lucky. Thank you, meteor!
Please stop.. 😂 I love birds too, but there's no need to slap them with the insults. Birds are like gold; alien-like compared to the next-most 'similar' thing & no one agrees where it came from. Quite the presumption to assume humans wouldn't figure out how to hunt, domesticcate, and even mutate any and all species to be known. My evidence? All of human history. 😅
@@derek420358 I don't see how I was insulting birds or anything else, other than people who believe people and dinosaurs live on this planet at the same time. Without a doubt birds are survivors. I love them as well. I am sorry you were offended, that was never my intension.
I live in Michigan. I once saw a Great Blue Heron in the winter, sitting near a bird feeder, picking off birds that were feeding on seed scattered in the snow
Some herons in the parks in London are so tame they will look for picnicking people and accept food from them they won't attack you just sit and wait to be offered food
I have seen a couple of these hanging around fishermen and trying to beg fish from them. The subject heron is the tamest heron I have ever encountered but she is also the best hunter
Glad you think so! I spent a lot time trying to get in the right light. The bird is a very good bird to videotape because it is very used to people in the park.
You can see the upper bill is through the skull of the gopher. Very successful predator. Until a lion or gator catches them; circle of their lives and prey
Thank you I have worked a lot harder for other videos but I got lucky on this one. I waited for a hour and a half this morning and the heron I was watching barely moved but finally missed a gopher. That is when you really need patience
WHAT AIM! She must've hit the gopher in JUST the right spot for there to be absolutely NO struggling at all. Usually there's a fair amount of shaking and thrashing on behalf of both the heron and such substantial prey!
For years I've enjoyed watching GBHs wade up and down the creek that runs through by back lawn.Recently Temps dropped to a staggering 10°F in NE Alabama for a few days but the creek only partially froze.One morning I came out and seen a dead adult at creekside.I have seen another since it warmed up.Not sure how the poor thing died unless it froze to death.But seems like it would have been found in some foliage instead of on a cold rock.Sure hated to see it as they have a great longevity.
I was with this particular heron the morning she passed. I think it was quite old. It was the first wild animal that I ever grew an emotional attachment to. I would sometimes wait for the bird to wake up and walk out of the cattails where it slept at night and then walk over to me. She would stand for a few minutes and then lead me on a hunt for gophers. She led me to have a real deep respect for her, her intelligence, and her super human abilities. As a consequence it really deepened my respect for all animals.
with the lack ov movement from the gopher, I'd say he was dead upon impact, i ciuld be wrong, as i know very little about the force heroins hit for, if it was a broken neck, or if gophers pretend to be dead, but thr first one struggled (in the previois video)
Yeah I agree. This heron is very deadly relative to other herons I have witnessed but sometimes the gophers don’t give her a good target and they are surprisingly quick
Saranno anche belli da vedere ma qui nella pianura Padana fanno dei disastri mettendo a rischio estinzione le rane di latast , vari anfibi e lucertole. Il loro areale sarebbe l'Africa o paesi simili.
Yeah I do too. They are really successful but it does help a prey species to have predators keep their numbers in check. As a mammal I can’t help but cheer for them but I have also been cheering for that heron.
Yeah herons, forget about it. You see, some dinosaur birds walk like that, some other dinosaur birds just hops along like the sparrow. This must on no account be neglected
She (I think it likely a she) is a bit of a magician. She typically stabs gopher with bill slightly open. Whether she hits with upper or lower bill or both she then closes it very tightly and if necessary she can tug it out of the ground. The tip has small teeth like things on tip and she can grab something very small using it like tweezers or like a pair of pliers and grab something big. That bill can be quite the dagger too
@@jimzenor9148 i for my self searched it to give you a link. i dont know again which documentary it was. watched it on arte or phoenix or 3sat. it was a german documentay about i think the tibet high plains or maybe bhutan
@@jimzenor9148 so yeah, i also dont found it anymore. maybe some day i will see the docu again and then can tell you its exact name. because it often happens due to the fact that i watch documentarys every day, like a true german, lmfao 😂🤓
That sounds like my kind of documentary. I thought it was likely a German documentary or at least a German named bird. I had to look up Reiher. My German isn’t that good.
@@jimzenor9148 no all good. the problem is more that i had to learn this language and from what i should now how Reiher is called in english lmao. all good, it was my mistake! because iam tired of always having to translate all the technical terms into english lol
I was in Everglades N.P. some years ago, a ranger was leading a tour and giving a discussion on how the various Herons and Egrets hunt differently. When he got to the Great Blue Heron he said that they bore their prey to death...............very apropos!
I like how patient the Heron was, but in the end he decided to Gopher it.
😂😂 This comment wins the internet!
Badump bump.
Yuck yuck yuck Wiseguy just like The Three Stooges
brilliant 😂
Can’t explain why I like this joke so much, but I do 🤣🤣
Herons are modern day dinosaurs, incredible hunting skills, they look so elegant with their long thin beak, but that beak is a powerful weapon, part harpoon, part dagger, part jaws, it's like a Swiss army beak.
"Swiss Army Beak" LMAO Good one, John!
Birds came from dinosaurs
Powerful birds (though relativily) are Eagles, ostriches, cassowaries, heron, pelicans, swans etc.
Birds are coelurosaurs, known as feathered dinosaurs wich includes, dromeosaurids, oviraptorosaurs, tyrannosaurids, Megaraptors etc. Birds are the only coelurosaurs to survive.
If they were “modern day dinosaurs” they wouldn’t exist. As dinosaurs never existed.
Just incredible how the heron was as motionless as a lawn flamingo when waiting for the perfect time to strike.
Yeah, I felt oblidged to point out that she wasn't a photo. I have seen this heron in that pose a few times.
there is one that hunts a damn near my house he sits for hours motionless
there is one that hunts a damn near my house he sits for hours motionless
Imagine how terrifying a Quetzacoatlus hunting
The trick is to swallow the Gopher head first...then they just "scamper" on down to the stomach...Yikes! I think the Great Blue Heron stabbed the Gopher at the base of his skull and spinal cord = Quick Death...
That's what it looked like to me as well. Nailed him in the sweet spot.
lucky for the gopher, death by drowning in stomach acid would suck.
He was clearly dead before the swallow..still strange tbh to see it.
A gopher swallowed conscious and struggling won't "scamper down to the stomach"... it would try to burrow through the heron's tough (catfish and sculpin spine resistant) gullet with its' very powerful and heavily clawed front feet, and tear through with its' huge exposed incisors. A heron feeding young does not pass most food directly to the stomach, but carries prey in its' crop (the base of the gullet) to its' nest or fledglings.
Dangerous prey that isn't killed or fatally paralyzed by a heron's first capture strike is finished off with one or two sharp bites to the neck. Defenseless small fishes, frogs, etc are swallowed conscious (not necessarily the same as "being eaten alive) and struggling.
It looked like it was still struggling once swallowed.
You can see the neck bulging in and out from its feet.
Gopher didn’t seem to struggle at all 😂. Dude was like, aight you got me lol. Went from dirt tunnel to throat tunnel.
I’m pretty sure she literally stabbed it through the back of its head, maybe the brain. I have seen this heron catch a lot of gophers such as the most recent one a couple days ago. She deliberately killed it with a bill to back of head. She is really good at disabling them quickly. It seems every other heron has the prey struggle longer
@@jimzenor9148 Interesting. Glad you clarified this here about the beak. I was wondering why no squirming and/or shrieking from the gopher. That strike was basically a kill-shot as well as snapping that gopher up.
@@jimzenor9148 ..snapped the neck. Over.
The lion of the marsh strikes! Brilliant video, I often enjoyed watching these guys and the egrets when I lived in FL.
The gopher looks out and thinks "hey...I don't remember a tree there before. Oh well..going to visit cuz next door".
Wow! Thank you so very much for this work.
When I was a kid in south Florida I used to watch these birds and many others for hours on end through my granddad’s WWII field glasses… anyone who wants to know about the non-avian theropod dinosaurs and their likely behavior? Watch these avian dinosaurs and we’ve got a good idea .
Thanks again, liked and subscribed ❤️
Thanks, I appreciate that
And there's yer dinner! Maranatha, Greetings from Tampa Florida 😎
I was prospecting in the San Gabriel mountains. It was after a flood so the river had risen and was muddy. I saw a heron watching this one spot be the rapids. I fish too so I thought this might be interesting. Ten minutes later his head shot into the water and he came up with a fish. As he shot up, his feet went flying out from under, the fish flew out of his mouth back to the river and he got his ass soaked. When he came up he was pissed. Flapping his wings ,jumping screaming. The frustration measurable. I could hear the cuss words. I've also seen them creep up to the waters edge, look, slowly back up and shift to another spot and repeat. Being a Fisherman also, sometimes he'll glare at you like you're screwing up his fishing spot. I just tell him '" look, you've tried for half an hour, give someone else a chance" and he'll move up river.
That’s funny. I’ve had similar experience with this heron. She is my favorite subject. She is very emotional it seems. She will squawk or open her bill when she misses. I try to not scare her gophers but she gets pissy at me if I interrupt her hunting.
She must have killed it on the first blow.. What a good bird.
It looked like the gopher was immediately dead as if the heron had stabbed his head.
Yeah that was a perfect shot. You can see in the slow motion that she really zeroed in on that gopher. It seems they ususally do hit them in a vital spot but not always.
Wouldn’t you be?😮
@@jimzenor9148 Bald Eagle vs Blue Heron is also a good matchup /watch?v=dpZmyKT9-6I
instakill
@@isolinear9836 didn’t work, i wanna see
Just shows why we need birds. Not only do they kill insects but the big ones like this blue heron
attack and eat a variety of rodents. We need more blue herons.
the patience of the heron beat my own!! Amazing how the heron is steady and pounces on the oblivious gopher. Glad you were able to catch a glimpse of this amazing animal!
that backround noise around 1:10 sounds like godzilla charging up his laser attack ha
Great... We liked and enjoyed to the end. Awesome... Full watched. Thanks Have a happy day!
Thank you.
Have a nice day too.
I lived nearby for 9 years and used to walk weekly through different parts of the park. I witnessed the birds successfully catch their prey and devour it. Good work.
Instant kill! That gopher had it lucky, compared to other victims.
Patience is a virtue
Stunning film work! 👍👍
Thanks I appreciate that. Sometimes the light, the camera, the bird, and the gopher all come together and cooperate and I manage to get a good shot.
Nice catch. When I was a kid, in Florida, I often watched big herons hunting lizards, snakes, other birds, mice, etc, really far from the water, they would just stroll the lawns and eat like they were at an automatic sushi vendor.. really awesome birds.
Great camera work! Great video. Those birds are amazing.
When I lived in So.Florida, we use to have a big lake/reserve by our back yard. I was always amazed watching the blue herons slowly stalking their prey and eating it. Seen them eat everything, from small ducks to fish and even large snakes!!!!!!! Nature is incredible
It's amazing how it stabbed the gopher in the head with it's sharp beak and killed it instantly
It pierced its head, killed it instantly😨
Lived in El Dorado Park a few months in the early 70s.
Missed out on the Park part!!!
2:20
Gopher: oh, looks like the new heron statue has just been erected. it looks great
😂
Gopher looks at the heron and goes "Nah, thats a statue".
Omg dad its you!! Its been years, i thought I'd never see you again!! 🤣
Paleontologists say that birds are actually dinosaurs. If that is true and we were alive during the reign of dinosaurs, which we were NOT! Then we would have never stood a change of us becoming us! Just look at how birds hunt and eat and what speed most of them have. We would have never stood a chance against birds or T. Rex or velociraptor! We got lucky. Thank you, meteor!
Please stop.. 😂
I love birds too, but there's no need to slap them with the insults.
Birds are like gold; alien-like compared to the next-most 'similar' thing & no one agrees where it came from.
Quite the presumption to assume humans wouldn't figure out how to hunt, domesticcate, and even mutate any and all species to be known.
My evidence? All of human history.
😅
@@derek420358 I don't see how I was insulting birds or anything else, other than people who believe people and dinosaurs live on this planet at the same time. Without a doubt birds are survivors. I love them as well. I am sorry you were offended, that was never my intension.
I saw something similar where I live on the coast. Amazing hunters with keen eyesight and incredible reflexes. Thanks for uploading.
Such an amazing shot of this Great Blue Heron, Jim! Thanks for sharing my friend. Best regards, Thomas.
I live in Michigan. I once saw a Great Blue Heron in the winter, sitting near a bird feeder, picking off birds that were feeding on seed scattered in the snow
Cool. That is very fast prey.
Clean kill.....gopher didn't feel a thing....
She looks happy when she ended the hunt lol
2:42 " Wow. I did this. "
Outstanding video Jim. Excellent capture. Noticed he was all decked out with his mating plumage too. 👍👍👍👍
Some herons in the parks in London are so tame they will look for picnicking people and accept food from them they won't attack you just sit and wait to be offered food
I have seen a couple of these hanging around fishermen and trying to beg fish from them. The subject heron is the tamest heron I have ever encountered but she is also the best hunter
That would be a marvelous experience.
That was instant death!
Must be the Heron pierced the gopher's spinal cord with that first strike. The gopher appeared paralyzed
Yeah this heron is a real gopher assassin
Wow, amazing catch... I did enjoy it 😊😊😊
Excellent job capturing these!
Looks like the gopher was either dead or paralysed, by the hammer blow of the beak.
That was a kill shot. Usually they wiggle and fight.
Yeah she got him good
Amazing video!
Glad you think so! I spent a lot time trying to get in the right light. The bird is a very good bird to videotape because it is very used to people in the park.
That was horrifying.... Nice all around video quality.
But if I kill all the golfers the police will come and take me away - Bill Murray caddy shack
Wish he'd hang out in my backyard when I had a garden
That's what a Dinosaur would do with small prey, a couple o' years ago!!
You can see the upper bill is through the skull of the gopher. Very successful predator. Until a lion or gator catches them; circle of their lives and prey
Like Homer gobbles a donut....
Messed up, I like gophers but when you gotta go you gotta go. COL circle of life
Is that gopher dead?
You worked hard and patiently to make this video
Thank you
I have worked a lot harder for other videos but I got lucky on this one. I waited for a hour and a half this morning and the heron I was watching barely moved but finally missed a gopher. That is when you really need patience
Caddyshack Gopher: Heh heh Carl Spackler can’t get me and wait what is that? Ahhh!
and now the gopher lives in the herons belly, on quiet days you see his little head appear at the beak.
Beautiful bird moving swift silent and deadly with such grace
WHAT AIM! She must've hit the gopher in JUST the right spot for there to be absolutely NO struggling at all. Usually there's a fair amount of shaking and thrashing on behalf of both the heron and such substantial prey!
Yeah this heron was the deadliest one I have watched. She usually hit a vital on the first strike.
That fast, spearing action with the pointy bill is the ticket! Gotta get me one of those.
For years I've enjoyed watching GBHs wade up and down the creek that runs through by back lawn.Recently Temps dropped to a staggering 10°F in NE Alabama for a few days but the creek only partially froze.One morning I came out and seen a dead adult at creekside.I have seen another since it warmed up.Not sure how the poor thing died unless it froze to death.But seems like it would have been found in some foliage instead of on a cold rock.Sure hated to see it as they have a great longevity.
I was with this particular heron the morning she passed. I think it was quite old. It was the first wild animal that I ever grew an emotional attachment to. I would sometimes wait for the bird to wake up and walk out of the cattails where it slept at night and then walk over to me. She would stand for a few minutes and then lead me on a hunt for gophers. She led me to have a real deep respect for her, her intelligence, and her super human abilities. As a consequence it really deepened my respect for all animals.
Stabbed it in the back of his neck with his beak. Amazing.
She is my favorite film subject. She is really good at killing her prey quickly
Humans spear fish in the water, Herons spear fish on dry land, lol.
with the lack ov movement from the gopher, I'd say he was dead upon impact, i ciuld be wrong, as i know very little about the force heroins hit for, if it was a broken neck, or if gophers pretend to be dead, but thr first one struggled (in the previois video)
Yeah I agree. This heron is very deadly relative to other herons I have witnessed but sometimes the gophers don’t give her a good target and they are surprisingly quick
My wife called the gopher DUI (dead upon impact)
Saranno anche belli da vedere ma qui nella pianura Padana fanno dei disastri mettendo a rischio estinzione le rane di latast , vari anfibi e lucertole. Il loro areale sarebbe l'Africa o paesi simili.
So that's how kung-fu adopted the crane. Deadly attack..
I wish Mr. Heron would come over to my house. Outstanding hunting skills.
Dope video 🎯💯
Feel sorry for the little guy. I like gophers.
Yeah I do too. They are really successful but it does help a prey species to have predators keep their numbers in check. As a mammal I can’t help but cheer for them but I have also been cheering for that heron.
"Creeping bloody Jesus" if there ever was one.
Bill Murray used all those explosives and such in Caddyshack. To get that "varmint" all he really needed was this guy.
Yep, sometimes all you need is a heron with a dagger.
It appears that the rodent was dead upon contact with that beak!
By the tail twitching at 2:43 you can tell that the herons beak severed or severely damaged the nervous system of the pocket gopher immediately.
Yeah she stopped that gopher very quickly.
Nice footage! 👍
Eaten head first, pooped out head first.😆💩
That Heron's name is Stabby McStabby.
While kayaking off the Gulf of Mexico near Port St Joe I witnessed a blue heron stab and eat a large snake.
They are really amazing hunters
I was going to offer to buy that gopher a pair of glasses but, too late. 🤓
Instant death. The gopher never moved an inch.
Did you know Herons taste like chicken?
Used to see these birds come over to Long Beach airport and hunt gophers.
If only Bill Murray employed a heron...
Burung yang sangat istimewa banget kawan ku sangat cantik dan indah
Cleanest kill I've ever seen in the animal world
That poor little gopher !
RS. Canada
Great video!!!!!!!
That was awesome 😎
Never seen this irl but I have on several occasions, seen a pelican try to swallow a pigeon.
A heroic gopher, was only one strike down.
Yeah herons, forget about it. You see, some dinosaur birds walk like that, some other dinosaur birds just hops along like the sparrow. This must on no account be neglected
You wicked evil person why would you talk badly about the heron?
what are you even talking about
Heron should have played "I'm Alright".
The Caddyshack theme is a great song for a gopher getter.
One wiped out a family of baby ducks behind my house and my gf wants to beat it to death
My friend at work had one eat all of his Koi except one which it left on the patio
The gopher appears to be dead. Probably the Heron's beak stabbed into it's brain or the back of the neck and the gopher probably killed instantly.
Yeah I think that was one of the best shots I’ve seen from her.
Great camera work.
Great footage, quality is insane. Gopher didn’t know what hit him
Ice pick to the temple fatality
Skip to 2:37. You're wlecome
wow, gives you insight to how a dinosaur might have fed.. nice
Yeah. It is like a velociraptor with a dagger
Did it stab it? Or just grab it?
Patiently waiting for a meal.
She (I think it likely a she) is a bit of a magician. She typically stabs gopher with bill slightly open. Whether she hits with upper or lower bill or both she then closes it very tightly and if necessary she can tug it out of the ground. The tip has small teeth like things on tip and she can grab something very small using it like tweezers or like a pair of pliers and grab something big. That bill can be quite the dagger too
Saw a documentary in past where a Kaiserreiher eats a himalaya marmot. That was epic.
I tried to find it but Google didn’t have a link. At least I found out what a kaiserreiher was.
@@jimzenor9148 i for my self searched it to give you a link. i dont know again which documentary it was. watched it on arte or phoenix or 3sat. it was a german documentay about i think the tibet high plains or maybe bhutan
@@jimzenor9148 so yeah, i also dont found it anymore. maybe some day i will see the docu again and then can tell you its exact name. because it often happens due to the fact that i watch documentarys every day, like a true german, lmfao 😂🤓
That sounds like my kind of documentary. I thought it was likely a German documentary or at least a German named bird. I had to look up Reiher. My German isn’t that good.
@@jimzenor9148 no all good. the problem is more that i had to learn this language and from what i should now how Reiher is called in english lmao. all good, it was my mistake! because iam tired of always having to translate all the technical terms into english lol
Farmers love you.
I was in Everglades N.P. some years ago, a ranger was leading a tour and giving a discussion on how the various Herons and Egrets hunt differently. When he got to the Great Blue Heron he said that they bore their prey to death...............very apropos!
👍👍🐦🐦