Ardea herodias, a Great Blue Heron

It was on the New Jersey side of the Delaware river, off the road 521 going south. An old mill was now just an old house by a pond. The dam was still there and the pond turned into a tiny creek going south. A bridge over the creek led to an area with two benches. The creek disappeared into the forest. In the shadows of the trees, in a quite dark place was a large bird.

The bird was a focused, experienced hunter. It was a very quiet, majestic bird, hardly moving at first, then slowly, one quiet step at a time, closing in on a sly deeper area of the creek. Obviously hunting for fish. I did not know what kind of bird it was. It was very large, confident, beautiful. There, it rushed for a fish. Quiet again, the long tongue cleaned the yellow beak. The bird was a large heron, but what kind of Heron? I sat down on the edge of the bridge and shot with my old praktina, with the f4/300 Carl Zeiss Sonnar lens.

I then, later, walked slowly to the shore of the creek. I was maybe four yards away from the bird when I shot the the last shots. The bird knew very well that I was there, I think the sly open beak was a signal for me to stay where I was. I made sure not to cross the line. The bird kept hunting. I crawled back with as much respect as I had moved forward.
It was only today that I found out that I had seen an adult Great Blue Heron, an Ardea herodias, a bird with a 72" wingspan, weighing about 5 pounds, the largest and heaviest heron in the United States.