While Lisa and I were in the Dominican on our love-fest, we spent a good bit of time watching a bird from our terrace. It liked to fish in the pond out back that was slap loaded with little fish.
Whenever we walked by the pond, those fish would clamor to see who was coming and whether or not they'd get a handout.
One afternoon before dinner, I asked Lisa to go down and feed the fish with me. We took some club crackers from the minibar and sat on the edge of the water mushing them up and tossing pieces in.
Surprisingly, as soon as the fish got riled up, this goofy bird came and sat right beneath us, about two feet away.

We figured he was just trying to get in on the cracker action, but what he was doing was picking up the pieces of cracker, then setting them on top of the water waiting for a fish to get it so he could eat the fish.
We weren't sure that's what was going on at first, but when the half dozen turtles would get too overbearing, he'd pick up his crumb, move away, and sit it on the water again. If it started floating away, he'd pick it up and move it closer to himself. If it went mushy and sank, I'd throw him some more and he'd get a new one.
We watched intently, and it took only a couple minutes for him to nab a fish. When he did, he walked up on the bank, then spun it around so he could swallow it correctly. Apparently he knew if he dropped it back in the water, dinner was over.

Even after watching all this, we weren't really sure that what we were seeing was what we thought we saw, and we ran out of crackers (or so we thought, turned out I was sitting on some more). No matter, this bird was still hungry, so he grabbed a snail shell and continued placing it on the water, grabbing it and moving it when the turtles were screwing up his fishing, and ultimately caught himself dinner again. Lisa even managed to catch the whole business on video on her iphone. It was quite a thing to behold.

Today I went and found out what this critter was, it's a Green Heron. Why they call it green is a mystery to me when it's black and red, but whatever. Also, it has a long neck. The pics at Wiki are very deceiving. It keeps it's neck scrunched up, so it's hard to tell.
That Wiki article I linked says "Sometimes they drop food, insects, or other small objects on the water's surface to attract fish, making them one of the few known tool-using species", which made me realize we witnessed something really special, something we'll probably never see again in our lives, and something few people have probably ever witnessed. That's why I wanted to tell you guys about it. :-)
[Reply]

Those birds are more intelligent than some people I have observed lately. Thanks for the neat nugget of info this morning, Scott.
[Reply]

Cool story.
There is one pic at the bottom of wiki (in the gallery) showing the neck streched out. It's hard to image that's the same bird.
[Reply]

LOL that bird is living large :-)
[Reply]

I had a fish in college, it was a bream that I caught one day that was SO COLORFUL. I discovered through
observation that a fishes coloration increases dramatically when it is about to feed and after it feeds.
I had a chunk of tubifex worms I was going to feed it as I always did, and I got a phone call, put the tubifex
chunk on some masking tape I had matrixed across the top to discourage doofus "leaping out ideas" on the fishes
behalf. And then I hear this splash. The food chunk was gone and the fish was munching away and all colored up.
After I hung up the phone, (cause they used to hang on walls in my day) I put another chunk on the tape,
and watched amazed as it jumped out of the water and tapped that tape with it's nose and then ate the
ball of food that fell in the water. From that day on, he was the dormitory sensation til he just got too big for
that 29 gallon tank. But I gave him to another aquarist that promised to continue taking good care of it in his
55 until it had to go back to nature, or MIT, whichever it decided upon.
[Reply]

On your honeymoon and you're watching birds catch fish with the woman you love. Ain't life grand brother? :-) :-)
[Reply]

Dave, this is where the poor little bastard lived. The whole incident went down right at the little tree on the right of the pond. (This was the view from our terrace, it's how I got introduced to the bird. I watched him every morning while I was having coffee.)

Image
[Reply]

You bet your sweet ass, my brother!!! :-)
[Reply]

Great story, I like watching those birds, but have never seen them do anything like that.
[Reply]

What a great experience! I love watching stuff like that!
[Reply]

Danged bird has a better life than me! :-)
[Reply]

I know you wish you had time to go moving your crackers around from place to place.
[Reply]

I've been out in the front yard trying to catch a bird with crackers, no luck so far. I might have to watch the video.
[Reply]

I've watched blue herons sitting by the side of a river and catching fish, as well as kingfishers swooping over a small lake to catch them.
[Reply]

Found a cool video on youtube of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKDr-icvryw
[Reply]

Very cool Scott.
[Reply]

That's good stuff. You'll be talking about this when you're both old and gray!
[Reply]

A few years ago I took my daughter fishing early one Sunday and we ran into a string of small pumpin-seed sunfish.

She started catching them on just about every cast (I was the offical hook baiter, fish remover).

After about fish number three a large white crane (I think) flew over and stood just off to the side of us on the rocks.

I threw fish number four back and it watched closely and took a few steps closer (the bird was almost taller than my daughter).

Fish number five hit the water and was instantly scooped up, he missed number six but managed to eat number seven and eight before finally flying back to the tree he had been perched in.
[Reply]

Great story, thanks for sharing.
[Reply]

Scott the lesson here is don't get sucked in with crackers...or you'll get eaten
[Reply]