Blue Heron Holding Freshly Caught Fish Royalty-Free Stock Photo

Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) catch not only fish, as exhibited by the patient bird here, also insects, reptiles, rodents and small birds. They locate their food by sight, generally swallowing it whole, as this heron did after some maneuvering. At first it seemed to be a case of the eyes being bigger than the stomach. The heron in this photo is pictured close up wading through thick Water Hyacinth in a slow-moving central Florida river.