Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hate a thief (ID the bird)

Taken from my front door step. He is stealing my granddaughters' bass.



But he escaped before the cops could show up.



I am pretty sure I heard him say "Fug you Cracker".

Great blue heron.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Blue_Heron/id

Little blue heron .

Filet mignon of the sky. That right there is a GBH, my most hated enemy besides otters.

I think it's a grey heron. We get the sandhills here for the summer.

Ardea herodias!

We have lots of GBH around here. There is a nesting grove down against the river a couple miles away in some big cottonwoods. You never know the nests are there until the leaves fall in autumn.

But I guess I have not been this close before, or had the 300mm lens available. I thought the GBH had a longer beak.

We also have a lot of Sandhills, a few night herons, and occasionally what I guess might be an egret. About half the size of the GBH and snow white.

Birdie is right.

You don't have eagles bothering you guys up there? I'm hosting a pair at the hatchery most days for the last year. Expensive decorations....

Biggest problem we used to have was squawks (crested night herons). I counted more than 300 on one set of raceways one night, and F&G's official count for the whole valley was 264.

But yes, Great Blue Heron. I've heard tell #4 shot works as expected.

Heron of some type.

Dutch, I and the pond are inside city limits these days with lots of nosy neighbors and right on the intersection of two busy county roads. Gunfire would get a response..........probably not one I would like.

The pond is eighteen feet deep. We will just have to suffer with the loss of fingerlings to hungry predators. The banks are steep enough that the adults do not even expose themselves much when spawning.

Eagle are occasionally seen down on the Payette River, and sometimes an osprey. But we do not see them much away from the river. Eagles are pretty thick right in downtown Boise on the Boise River.

Good luck with that one. It's probably found a breakfast, lunch, and dinner counter.

Lol, I used to run a hatchery inside the city limits, there are ways.... But that was a long, long, long, LONG time ago.

Believe it or not, a dog can be the best deterrent if you can get it excited about chasing that kind of bird. Just don't ever let him actually catch it, that beak will break skin (or so I've heard tell... )

Another method that works middling to fair is to run a hot wire, usually takes two or three to make sure they get zapped when they walk in. Motion activated lights work good (actually better than motion activated sound, and easier on the relationships with the neighbor). Hand held laser pointers if you have too much time on your hands.

I call them shîtpokes

Had the at my pond, a propane bird canon takes care of that problem

Hot wires work about 3"-4" above the edge of a concrete raceway. Mostly

Not sure how I'd do it around a pond like in the OP's pic though.

We had one at a place I worked, completely enclosed by fence and bird wire over the top. Dang thing would sit on the hill and wait until everyone left the raceways for lunch, break or to get a tool or the feed truck, then fly down and walk in gates which were a pain in the butt to close every time we left for a few minutes.

I heard of some facilities that have dogs that "patrol" all day. Mostly border collie types.

Them birds are deadly accurate with that beak too. Imagine an eye getting taken out by one. They can grab a 1.5" minnow at close to three feet, they can hit an eye if they want.

Someone did a study on kingfishers and hatchery fingerlings. 9 a day average. That adds up in a lot of potential profit lost over the course of a season. Imagine how many a heron can eat.

Keep the window open behind the couch in the trailer, open the curtains about 1-1/2” gap

#6 high brass, full choke 12ga

Was hittin my bud’s koi and comet pond hard, sombitch was hard to get to sneak on till the above set up

I was on the back bedroom in case he needed back up with the 16 ga

Schit can that stork!

Pterodactyl

I ran a big hatchery that was covered in standard chicken wire that was about 20 years old. The bastards figured out that they could walk on top of the ceiling, and they worked the wire with their feet enough to create holes, some big enough to get their bodies through. I'd come in in the morning and there'd be a dozen squawks and blues in the cage. Took me a while to figure that one out.

The owner used to have a fishing club on the creek by the hatchery. That worked until the pelicans found it. Wiped it out in less than two weeks. Some birds ate some much trout they couldn't fly.

Once herons find a guaranteed meal, they and their five dozen descendants will return until it's fished out. Best to nip it in the bud.