Life List 016
Portfolio in progress
Great Blue Heron
Ardea herodias
- First photographed
- June 19, 2026
- First location
- Fountain, Colorado, United States
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
The encounter
Field journal
The Great Blue Heron first joined my life list on January 4, 2026. I made my first photograph of the species on June 19, during my first dedicated birding trip with the camera and lens that marked my decision to invest seriously in photography. I was birding alone in Fountain, Colorado, when I found an immature Great Blue Heron standing in shallow water along a wall of tall green cattails. The heron remained nearly motionless, its long bill directed across the wetland as it watched the water. This photograph became the first visual record of Great Blue Heron for No. 016.
An evolving study
Great Blue Heron portfolio
This collection grows as I return to photograph new behavior, habitat, seasons, and stages of life.
Return visits
The journal continues
New chapters are added here as I encounter this species again across seasons, places, and years.
On June 23, I photographed Great Blue Herons at an active nesting colony in Farmington, Utah. An adult attended a young bird at a platform nest, another heron approached the colony with its legs lowered for landing, and a final frame isolated the species in open flight. Together, these photographs add nesting, parental attendance, landing, and flight to a portfolio that previously documented only a solitary immature heron.
The following day in Salt Lake City, I photographed an adult Great Blue Heron carrying a captured vole across a paved path. The encounter added prey handling to the portfolio while showing how the species moves between wetland habitat and the human-shaped landscape surrounding it.
On July 17, I encountered an immature Great Blue Heron beside a creek in Fountain, Colorado. A quiet full-body portrait provided a clearer study of its immature plumage, while a second photograph captured the bird holding a crayfish in shallow water. The encounter added both a stronger life-stage portrait and detailed prey-handling behavior to the portfolio.
Natural history
Species at a glance
Ardea herodias
Overview
The Great Blue Heron is North America’s largest heron and one of the continent’s most recognizable wetland birds. It often stands motionless or walks slowly through shallow water before striking rapidly at nearby prey. Despite its size, it flies with slow, powerful wingbeats, its neck folded into an S-shape and its long legs trailing behind.
Identification
Great Blue Herons are extremely tall birds with long legs, a sinuous neck, broad wings, and a thick, dagger-shaped bill. Adults are primarily blue-gray with a whitish head, a broad black stripe above the eye, and shaggy feathers along the neck and back. Immature birds are generally duller and browner, with a dark crown, a dusky bill, streaking along the neck, and brownish feathers mixed through the blue-gray plumage.
Range
Great Blue Herons occur across most of North and Central America, with some populations extending into the Caribbean and northern South America. They can be encountered throughout the year in much of the United States. Northern populations are more migratory, while birds in milder regions may remain near suitable feeding habitat throughout the year.
Habitat
Great Blue Herons inhabit freshwater and saltwater environments, including marshes, ponds, lakes, rivers, reservoirs, estuaries, shorelines, and wooded swamps. They also forage away from water in grasslands and agricultural fields. Breeding colonies are usually situated near productive feeding areas and may contain many large stick nests.
Diet
Great Blue Herons eat fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, small mammals, and occasionally other birds. They usually hunt by standing still or wading slowly before thrusting their head and neck forward to seize prey with the bill.
Photography by Brittany Templin
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