Great Blue Heron
The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America, as well as far northwestern South America, the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found in south Florida and the Florida Keys is known as the great white heron. Debate exists about whether this represents a white color morph of the great blue heron, a subspecies of it, or an entirely separate species. The great blue heron is the largest heron native to North America. Among all extant herons, it is surpassed in size only by the goliath heron (Ardea goliath) and the white-bellied heron (Ardea insignis). It exhibits a minor degree of sexual dimorphism; males are slightly larger than females, but otherwise the sexes are not easily outwardly distinguishable. It has head-to-tail length of 91–137 cm (36–54 in), a wingspan of 167–201 cm (66–79 in), a height of 115–138 cm (45–54 in), and a weight of 1.82–3.6 kg (4.0–7.9 lb). In British Columbia, adult males averaged 2.48 kg (5.5 lb) and adult females 2.11 kg (4.7 lb). In Nova Scotia and New England, adult herons of both sexes averaged 2.23 kg (4.9 lb), while in Oregon, both sexes averaged 2.09 kg (4.6 lb) Thus, great blue herons are roughly twice as heavy as great egrets (Ardea alba), although only slightly taller than them, but they weigh only about half as much as a large goliath heron.
Photo Gallery





HJ Ruiz – October 5th, 2023




Nice shot
Thank you very much! 🙂
Only two or three have ever crossed the Atlantic, although the problem may be one of identification. They are very, very like Grey Herons.
Beautiful shots, HJ!
Hi Clare,
I’m having serious problems to open your blog for some reason. How are you? I hope that well Thank you for your comment…. 🙂
I am sorry it has taken me so long to reply to you and that you are having problems with my blog. I haven’t posted anything for months which could be part of the problem. Have you tried un-following me and then re-following? That might work, though I am no expert 😊