{"id":14827,"date":"2015-08-29T11:37:03","date_gmt":"2015-08-29T18:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14827"},"modified":"2015-08-29T15:09:48","modified_gmt":"2015-08-29T22:09:48","slug":"happy-herons-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14827","title":{"rendered":"Happy herons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Kokanee salmon are spawning and everyone is happy. Tourists come to watch and others come to feed: ravens, gulls, eagles, vultures, ospreys, otters, bears, mallards, mergansers, rainbow trout, and (the focus of this posting), herons.<\/p>\n<p>There are perhaps a half-dozen Great Blue Herons working the creek. They were stationed on\u00a0trees, rocks, sandbanks and in the water. Now and then one would fly\u00a0to a new spot.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14832\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/heron159828as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A juvenile heron stood in the creek eyeing a Kokanee (reddish smudge, bottom centre).<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14830\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/heronfish150825as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It lunged. Its bill can be seen under the water approaching the fish.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14829\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/heronfish150825bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Success. But, the Kokanee is athwart the bill and must be turned before it can be swallowed.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14828\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/heronfish150825cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With a flick of its head, the heron rotates the fish and quickly downs the whole thing.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14831\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/heronfish150825ds2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Kokanee salmon are spawning and everyone is happy. Tourists come to watch and others come to feed: ravens, gulls, eagles, vultures, ospreys, otters, bears, mallards, mergansers, rainbow trout, and (the focus of this posting), herons. There are perhaps &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14827\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-fish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14827"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14840,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14827\/revisions\/14840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}