The accompanying photo montage shows three stages of neck extension in a green heron that I observed hunting recently in the 90th St. runoff pond, which is located on the east side of the Sammamish River, just north of the 90th St. bridge.
When you typically see a green heron, it has its neck retracted, and you would hardly guess that the neck could be extended so far. This was how the heron looked when I first spotted it. (See top photo.)
It subsequently extended its neck part way forward (middle photo), and then a few seconds later extended it all the way out (bottom photo).
The heron remained motionless with its neck fully extended for quite some time, when it abruptly sprang into flight and made a shallow dive into the water 6 or 7 feet away. In a flash, it emerged with something in its beak and flew off to the other end of the pond.
Up until then, I had mistakenly thought it was just staring down its beak into the water immediately in front of it, without the ability to spot anything farther away. Obviously, its peripheral vision was much better than I thought!
-- Photo and story by John Reinke
6/29/2020
Nice photos John. Tony K.
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