Great White Herron

     Over the course of this semester, I have grown extremely fond of walking the trails by the Trinity river in the early hours of the morning. It tends to be more peaceful in the morning and as a result, more wildlife can be observed from the trails. I was on my walk this weekend and I noticed a large, white bird standing on the bank of the river. As I walked towards the bird to get a better look, it dipped its head in the water and flew a few hundred yards down river. I decided to continue walking, in hopes that it would cross my path once again.

    I continued walking and eventually found the bird, perched on the riverbank like I had once seen it before. I slowly walked toward the bird in an effort to get a better glimpse and a picture of it. As you can see below, I was much luckier this time. As I was taking a picture of the bird an older gentleman approached me and said “those things are so cool.” I said “yeah, I know right?” He then went on to talk about how he loved watching them snatch fish out of the water and how they do it with such precision. I quickly realized that I had witnessed the bird snatching a fish out of the Trinity the first time I saw it perched up on the river bank.    

    When I left the Trinity, I did a bit of digging to find that the bird is called “The Great Egret”, more commonly known as “The Great White Heron.”  The bird's necks are so long that they can stand in shallow parts of the water and quickly snatch fish with their mouths. I had noticed birds similar to this one by the Trinity river before, but I had never taken the time to follow one as I did this day. I wonder if that older man does on a regular basis, he sounded like he does the early morning walk along the Trinity every day - Hopefully I will see him out there next week.