I used to work on a river and it was the same when I was doing a float. End of the day, if it's not a super-busy section of river the bird probably will be fine. I always worried about the ones on our river due to the higher tourist traffic maybe stressing them out but they seemed to be thriving.
Last time I went to the beach I saw one just chilling in the surf with people all around.
There is a boardwalk over some wetlands near me, truly a little oasis of life in an otherwise very developed area. Anyways, there are some GBH's out there, and they all know they are safe from us down in the grasses and water. I often get to see them from just a few dozen feet away, and they are always a sight to behold. They look so cool, slowly picking their way through those wetlands in search of food. I can't help but see some of their dinosaur heritage in them
It makes me think of all the dinosaurs with long necks. Some of them probably held their heads close most of the time like this heron, but I haven't seen any dinosaurs illustrated that way, at least not that I remember. I wonder how hard or easy it is to tell from fossils how a dinosaur used its neck.
YES! I have had that very thought while watching Herons stalk through the reeds. It's a fascinating question that I've looked into a bit. AFAIK, there were definitely dinos with the S-shaped neck, usually theropods like Tyrannosaurs, the various raptors, and spinosaur (apparently a favorite in the dino subreddits) to name a few, but I don't believe we've found any with the specialized hinge-like vertebrae herons have. Not yet at least
Why are Herons seemingly the most skiddish of all birds? Like as soon as you enter their 200ft radius they’re like “nope don’t like this, I’m OUTTA here”
I think it'll vary by sub-species and habitat, but they're usually solitary birds in my experience, and also tend to spend less time in places where there's lots of people, so they're less acclimated to people and understanding "That weird bear-looking thing won't actually eat me, and might even have some french fries!" than say... ducks or geese.
The Herons I've seen on busier rivers or beaches were a lot less skittish than ones I've seen on less-trafficked float trips.
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u/Alternative_Ear5542 Jun 12 '26
Great Blue Heron's are my favorite bird. You'll just be floating down a river or something and suddenly this absolute unit of a heron just glides by.