Not five minutes after I posted a photo of the Great Blue Heron I looked out the window. He was back- within 3 feet of the platform birdfeeder. He was frozen in strike position, eyeing two oblivious gray squirrels on the ground. When I banged on the door, he flew up to the lawn by the road and stalked around until a squad of bicyclists passing made him fly off again.
Ten minutes later he was back, and I ran out the door clapping to scare him away. He left, but I was at work that afternoon so I do not know if he came back and finally managed to swallow a squirrel whole.
There are plenty of squirrels up in the woods he could go after, but I feel guilty that I have put my front yard squirrels in harm’s way. When the Cooper’s Hawk comes and sits in the redbud tree I scare him away. When the neighbor’s gray cat hides under a lawn chair planning an ambush I yell at him too.
I am a sentimentalist.
I am also a hypocrite. If the heron was after woodchucks I would not mind at all if he swallowed every one.
Gardening On Granite 