“A bird with an eye like the full moon….” 

-Mary Oliver, from A Poem for the Blue Heron

The Great Blue Heron is the largest North American Heron, common near open shores and in wetland areas. In the shallow waters, herons feast on frogs and fish, but will also eat snakes, small mammals, other birds, and insects.

Great Blue Heron

Brilliantly camouflaged, from a distance this heron was virtually indistinguishable from the decaying stumps.

These solitary lurkers show up in the works of several well-known poets, including a number of of Mary Oliver's poems; in this piece, Theodore Roethke pays homage to their masterful grace and agility:

The Heron

By Theodore Roethke

The heron stands in water where the swamp
Has deepened to the blackness of a pool,
Or balances with one leg on a hump
Or marsh grass heaped above a muskrat hole.

He walks the shallow with an antic grace.
The great feet break the ridges of the sand,
The long eye notes the minnow's hiding place.
His beak is quicker than a human hand.

He jerks a frog across his bony lip,
Then points his heavy bill above the wood.
The wide wings flap but once to lift him up.
A single ripple starts from where he stood.

Great Blue Heron