Frustrating the heron videos

[addy1]

I am fascinated by this bad boy heron, it is a beautiful bird, so far totally frustrated. After some self teaching, figured out how to convert the dvr recordings to a format that u tube will use.

Over time, as we fight the bird, will post u tubes of the bird and its attempts, it may help someone with a similar battle.

Shooting is just not an option, there will be more herons, would rather just learn and protect from future birds.

We caught it flying away, what a wing span

Checking out the new fence

It came back yesterday evening, totally skipped walking up on the bog, walked behind the bog berm, to the far west side of the pond, tried to get in, then spotted hubby and flew. Now walking fast not really stalking.



Doing a header into the pond, before we had the fence up it tripped on the fishing line. We were in the house saw the camera alert, saw it fall into the pond, it stabbed the water a few times but the pond is 4 feet deep there. When we spooked it, it went towards the bog wall to get a foot purchase before it could fly away.

You can see its head right by the black taro

 

[j.w]

Thanks so much for posting these addy.
Man they have good eyes! I am very interested in watching these video's and am studying them very closely so I will know every kind of move they make trying to get in. Do you think that if you didn't have that fish line over the top that he would fly in and land? I know you have the chicken wire at a certain height and do you have fish line running horizontal in a line above the fence also and if so how high is the line. Not talking about the fish line that crosses across the pond back and forth.

 

[j.w]

Tried to like your post but guess I have to wait a full 24hrs to like another post. I liked too many yesterday, lol!

 

[fishin4cars]

Not good Addy, he's now figured out he can get in and out of the water, I hate to say it but he's determined and he's going to keep trying until he figures out how to get a meal out of your pond. they are beautiful birds but seriously, you need to find a way to run it off before he gets to much smarter. I know you don't want to hurt it but don't underestimate how smart they are. each trip he is learning a little more and a little more about your pond, the layout and the weak spots. he's going to find a way to get to the fish if there is a way. they are persistant and smart. A suggestion I have for you is install a speaker system and see if it can be rigged to your alert with some kind of noise that might scare it off. I'm still using the driveway alarms I bought and they do seem to do some good. So far no more heron attacks, Just keep having to run off a raccoon that is more intrested in getting to the cat and dog food than the pond fish. I wish you luck but I'm afraid that bad luck is in the future as long as he keeps coming around.
After losing my whole herd of koi last year, I learned just how determined, smart, and damaging they can be.

 

[addy1]

Thanks so much for posting these addy.
Man they have good eyes! I am very interested in watching these video's and am studying them very closely so I will know every kind of move they make trying to get in. Do you think that if you didn't have that fish line over the top that he would fly in and land? I know you have the chicken wire at a certain height and do you have fish line running horizontal in a line above the fence also and if so how high is the line. Not talking about the fish line that crosses across the pond back and forth.

The fishing line above the fence is just because I didn't have a pair of scissors with me to cut the line when putting in the chicken wire.

Not good Addy, he's now figured out he can get in and out of the water, I hate to say it but he's determined and he's going to keep trying until he figures out how to get a meal out of your pond. they are beautiful birds but seriously, you need to find a way to run it off before he gets to much smarter. I know you don't want to hurt it but don't underestimate how smart they are. each trip he is learning a little more and a little more about your pond, the layout and the weak spots. he's going to find a way to get to the fish if there is a way. they are persistant and smart. A suggestion I have for you is install a speaker system and see if it can be rigged to your alert with some kind of noise that might scare it off. I'm still using the driveway alarms I bought and they do seem to do some good. So far no more heron attacks, Just keep having to run off a raccoon that is more intrested in getting to the cat and dog food than the pond fish. I wish you luck but I'm afraid that bad luck is in the future as long as he keeps coming around.
After losing my whole herd of koi last year, I learned just how determined, smart, and damaging they can be.

I don't think it will fly in fishin, the one time it hit the water was because it fell in, the bog wall has loose rocks on top of it, they gave way under its foot, then it appears the fishing line caught its leg. The one place it was able to get out was cause I had the pond a foot low cutting in the skimmer. It otherwise has no foot purchase to get back out. It came back yesterday skipped the bog fence checked out the west fence, was checking out the north fence, when my sweety stood up............poor guy he felt so bad about standing up, once he did the bird alerted and left. It had been there around 40 minutes looking for a way through the fence. I have film of it looking through the plants poking at the fence. I have 4 cameras watching the pond for the next visit. If it was going to fly in I think it would have yesterday.

Going to keep watching, we are getting a drive way alarm for the gate opening so far it has always flown into the back field then walked in through the fence. We could also close the gate so it can't walk in, but it is a great alert window for us to catch it coming, i don't want it to start flying in somewhere else.

 

[fishin4cars]

better it has a preferred landing spot like outside the fence. the one we had would land by the swimming pool and use the hedges as cover to sneak up to the pond. At least this way you get a head warning and can observe. my biggest concern is the very early hours of the morning and late evening. They are sneaky, the first shots we got on camera of the one we had was about 4:30 am in the morning. and that's when he was doing the most attacks, later in the day he was doing a lot more checking and not nearly the hunting. BTW, I found foot prints in the algae covered bottom of the kiddy swimming pool today, looks like it could be a heron or egreat foot prints but no sign of the bird on the camera, only thing it could get out of there is a few tadpoles which he can gladly have, just stay away from my koi!

 

[addy1]

This bird must like day light, I have two night visions on the pond have never seen it down there after dark. But we are black dark here, no street lights, no house lights, unless there is a moon it is dark dark. I am usually up at 430-5 am and watch the cameras, have never seen it fly in, or gotten an alert except from bats and some huge bugs.

jw I put the line over the pond when we first started the battle, I was not sure if it would try to fly in. From reading it won't, they like to walk in. But to be safe I went ahead and strung some over, esp the walk in area. That is one place the bird could land in the water and not be floating.

I am going to need to get some sort of coverage for my fish, something floating when the plants start dieing. Watching them on the cam, they spend a lot of time under the plants just floating. We have a pool floaty thing, may just stick that in until we start freezing over.

 

[addy1]

It came back today............ totally ignored the pond with these two trips, instead went to the lotus pond that has a few small rosey minnows and tads in it, no clue if it can catch these small fish, maybe 1/2 inch.

 

[j.w]

Oh you are right about them only coming in daylight. They do not work during the night shift, lol! They may be able to catch the minnows but not much of a meal for them. He needs to move on now to another pond hopefully out in the wild now. Sounds like he's getting bored w/ your pond but still don't let your guard down yet. They are shifty buggers!

 

[addy1]

It appears to only come when it is cloudy/rainy/ foggy. Full sun have not seen the bird at all. It is so hard to spot, unless the bird is moving, unreal how still they will stand.

Well it checks out the lotus pond, not sure if it got the rosey's. Did get a neat shot of it flying away from the lotus pond, right next to the camera.

Wish I could make it slow mo........

Here it is checking out the high rock bank. If it is going to fly into the pond it will be from up on this bank.

The heron starts out at the lotus pond, does not look like it got any of the rosey reds, they are tiny, did pick something up off the dirt, toad/frog/bug who knows.

It then heads up to check out the upper bank until something to the west spooked it and it flew.

so far it has not gotten through the fence. Shows no interest in flying into the pond. We are leaving in two weeks, I am thinking of putting a lot more fishing line over the pond while we are gone. I would net it, but don't have a way to keep the net off the water unless we build a frame work of some sort. I think the line will do the job, at this point lol. Maybe by then it will move on........

 

[j.w]

You can see him perk up when he sees all your fish in that one area. He really wants them but just can't figure out how to get them. I think putting more line up is a good idea. Praying you guys can have a nice relaxing trip and that Mr Heron moves on!

 

[blessedfamily]

Wow he is very sneaky for sure..thanks for posting these.

 

[addy1]

Well it is still coming back, circling the pond, walking the bog. This trip it circles x3 or 4 in between the circling it goes out into my gardens and eats bugs, most likely those big fat black crickets we have an abundance of right now. Fun watching it stalk the crickets!

Well it decided it could walk the rock bank, there WAS lol gone now, one area it could start walking the wall without climbing down. It still did not appear to figure out a way to get the fish and just moved on. Now more chicken wire on the rock wall so it can not walk it.

 

[taherrmann4]

Your lilys look a lot better than mine. Mine are only about a third of what they were and dieing off fast.

 

[fishin4cars]

I just remarked on another thread to addy the same thing, I can really see the pond transforming and going into winter mode here. And the more leaves that die back the hungrier ole heron gets! :-(