This spring it looked like my pond was being taken over by snakes — nonvenomous gray water snakes, but snakes nonetheless.
My pond is tiny, maybe a quarter acre, so critters are fairly easy to see, though they do have good cover among the Louisiana irises, cypress limbs and other foliage.
But one morning I walked out and saw a huge wad of reptiles draped over both sides of a cypress root. There appeared to be at least four, maybe more, and fully grown.
I’d seen the snakes in the past but not in such numbers. A snake-expert friend had told me cottonmouths and nonvenomous water snakes don’t like to share territory, so I had left them alone. No need to wipe them out only to have cottonmouths move in.
Still.
The next day I saw snakes again on the root, then I one lying on the ground right in my path. I stepped toward it. It didn’t move, so I went around.
Farther along I spied a freshly shed snakeskin. Then I surprised two more snakes, apparently mating. They slithered into the water as I approached.
I discussed the situation with Angelyn. She’s not afraid of snakes but didn’t want them getting too close to our own space, which is a wooden dock reaching out over the water.
I told her if the problem persisted I would make a round with my .410.
Enter the heron
Then one day I walked out and spooked a great blue heron under the dock. It flapped away reluctantly.
After that I started seeing the heron pretty often — and snakes less and less.
No more wads of reptiles. No more serpents blocking my path.
Instead, they became few and far between, and skittish as well, darting away when I approached.
I figured herons eat snakes but wanted to be sure so I looked up heron videos on youtube. Just type in the search words “heron eats” and you’ll see a long list of videos showing the lanky birds catching all sorts of critters.
I knew herons eat small fish, of course. But I was stunned at what else is on their menu.
Jaw-dropping footage
First, snakes.
One video showed a great blue heron snatch up a 4-foot snake in its beak, chew, shake, drop, stab and repeat, wreaking havoc on the writhing reptile.
Even if the snake had a chance to strike — which it didn’t — it couldn’t have reached past the long hard beak and even longer neck.
Next, a video titled “Heron eating crocodile rabbit duck rat and fish” showed some unbelievable footage: Herons eating a live gopher, a full-grown rabbit, a three-foot alligator and several fish that look to weigh several pounds.
It doesn’t seem possible, but the herons’ jaws appear to unhinge and their necks expand to swallow oversized prey, usually head-first and squirming.
In my favorite scene, a black bear shows up and the heron spreads its wings and charges. The poor old bear runs off in a hurry.
Move over, honey badger
For many years I considered the great blue heron to be my spirit animal, especially as I encountered them so often when canoeing. But last year I wrote a column in which I declared the honey badger as my new spirit animal. I did that after seeing videos of honey badgers — which live in Africa and Asia — defeat attackers as formidable as lions, cobras and crocodiles.
Well, after watching the recent videos, I’m reinstating the great blue heron.
On a recent trip to Arizona, I got a close-up view of a heron hunting. The scene was a lake at a condo resort where the herons were obviously used to humans. I sat on a bench and watched one in shallow water just a few yards away.
I didn’t get to see it eat snakes or big fish, but I did see how it operates when filling up on small fry. The heron would take a step, stretch its neck, spot a minnow, then strike, grabbing the prey in its beak. It would gulp it down and move on to the next one.
This heron downed quite a few minnows while I watched.
Herons get a bad rap for eating fish in our ponds. However, biologists say landowners should be catching large numbers of bream to keep them from over-populating a pond — more bream than most people can manage.
The way I see it, herons are doing us a favor especially when they keep snakes from taking over.
