I call him Ahab. He takes command of our neighbor’s winterized pier and obsessively stares out into Great Cove for hours. (I like to think that he’s vengefully looking for a great white minnow that bit him in the leg while he was fishing in the Cove this spring.) When he swoops over his fishing territory, he’s imposing:
The pending question about this Heron is: Will our inscrutable Great Cove Great Blue take the often-fatal risk of overwintering here, as a growing number of GBHs appear to be doing in Maine?
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 6, 2024; sex assumed.)