I have to admit, I have seen the snowy egrets use this same fishing technique, but somehow the tricolored heron makes it look so much more comical.
Maybe it is, in part, their unswerving attention to hunting down their prey. I have seen a flock of snowy egrets who are done eating for the time being, scattered in a large group, all standing around preening or napping while the tricolored heron didn't get the memo.
It continues to weave it's way through the crowd, hunkered down low with it's head just above the water, trying to peer far enough ahead to ambush a fish.
As they move along, they drop down in slow motion into a posture just above the water where their center of balance is so impossibly far back you think they would fall on their face. I am surprised in this image that the heron's nictating membrane isn't visible. It makes me think that closing it is a voluntary action. The nictating membrane is like a semi-transparent eyelid that protects the eye.
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