Yesterday's post about disturbances in the water reminded me of a little comedy I witnessed a couple of years ago at the marsh. I was filming a tricolored heron, which is one of my favorite species because of the intensity it displays when feeding and it's sometimes comical hunting methods.
As I was filming one flying around, it began to land on this little rock, but suddenly veered off and landed elsewhere. Later, examining the photos in that series on the computer, I noticed this bright line in the water where something had disturbed the water.
It lead right to the "rock" on which the heron was going to land. So, I asked myself what could have caused the disturbance. I immediately ruled out current since there is none in the pond. Water passing a stationary object will sometimes produce a line in the water if the water is, for example, moving due to tide. That only made me more curious.
So I zoomed in on the rock and discovered that it was the head of a beaver or river otter which the heron had also mistaken for a rock and was going to land upon. Had I not wondered what had caused the disturbance, though, I would never have known about the heron's mistake.
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