3 Things The Blue Heron Knows about Your Pond - Ask #58

I know this is quite an old video but I’m in the UK and have just lost some fish to a heron after establishing my pond for about a year. Can you tell me if the same info and caveats you mention apply to the Grey European Heron as to the Great Blue Heron you have over there in the USA?

Dude, you blown my mine and i immediately subscribed. I have a pond of 15000 lires and 20 fish. Yesterday and for the first time my wife saw an evil bird close to the pound watching the fish, that was around 9PM . Now i'm studding that bird. I plan to buy a Bow to play with that bird at night late barbecue fire.
Thanks for the video.

Fishing Line end of problem.

I’m from the U.K., it’s a shame I can’t shoot the damn things, but they are protected here too. I actually had to cut one free and let it go, last year, after it got its wing caught up in the fishing line I had criss crossing my pond. It ruined my fish. Anyway, this year I decided to purchase a driveway alarm and placed it on the side of the bridge crossing my pond, so that it could only pick up body heat from anything around the pond. Unfortunately, the battery ran down, causing the alarm to continue going off, so I had to shut it down. That was when we had the the full moon a short while ago. Well, I have one fish with a big red sore, perhaps a beak stabbing and the rest of my fish are now hiding under the bridge, won’t eat and haven’t come out for days. I was surprised about the night fishing, but it does explain a lot.

Blue Heron got all of my fish with the last full moon! Netting and electric fence next. Thank you for this information.

I have one single best solution to protect your pod....: adopt DOG 🐕! I have 3 dogs and my latest adopt dog is paying me back by chasing all creatures and specifically Blue Heron

I have a rookery less than 3 miles away...it’s been a struggle so I gave up on koi and now stick to goldfish and rosy reds. Too heartbreaking to lose koi and even though I get protective about my goldfish you don’t get as attached 😥

People say they can only walk in your pond thats not true we’ve seen them jump in are pond and the water is more than 18ins deep and the side are more than a foot above the water

Ihave a pond with fish and have a problem with blue heron too but I started to do like keeping coyotes away just shoot up in the air once in awhile and you will scare them away

No I didnt know.

I thank you very much this video let me learn things I never knew about BLUE HERIONS VERY GOOD

i built a pond in my garden back in February 2020 and then 5 months after building, designing it, decorating it and waiting for flowers to grow i was finally ready to welcome fish in my pond, i started with just 3 small goldfish and i gotta say it looked amazing! i put them in at 1400hrs and after spending a few hours with them at 1800hrs i left for my night shift as i work as security, i came back the following morning at 0600hrs to find that they had disappeared i thought they were hiding under plants or something so i didnt think noting of it, i came back at 1400hrs to find they had really disappeared neighbours were telling me it was a heron but ive never seen one in my area in Manchester UK so if it is that i have bought a fake heron, heron resistant pond net and placed CD's in around around my pond im lucky i only lost 3 as i was going to put all sorts along with the goldfish including koi

Since they even hunt for ducks... would they attack my cat? And would they try to make a hole in my 3/8" UV resistant nylon black mesh? (openings are pretty small, I think n hope!) This one has been stalking my kois for 3 days non stop since he cought my beloved Linda, learned the hard way! Immediately installed the net tent that covers way more than the entire pond now but he would walk around it all day and night long, I scared him away 3 times today but he wont leave us alone! just right now hes looking at me from the neighbors yard waiting for me to leave. Full moon ends tomorrow and hes still here! Are we safe with the net or should I add more deterrants/protection? All answers welcome pls help!

Hi there, very good information to know. Worried as well about predators, especially blue herons. We’re from central CA and in the middle of building a pond. Would a pergola over the pond help to keep herons away. Also, a lot of our neighbors have solar panels roof tops with fake owls. Will this help as well? Thanks!

Just when I thought had the answer..... 😞 the Heron almost cleaned me out of goldfish last winter. The population was around 60 and early spring showed me around maybe 10...... I was devastated because I had only seen it at the pond once... I have 8 new goldfish introduced to the pond so maybe 20 at best. I bought a large fake rock and drilled holes in it and weighed it down in the center of the pond they can hide in there successfully. I just don’t know for how long. I may have to put a net over my pond and call it a day. I resisted because we have visiting ducks and this would be confusing. It’s a 3000 gallon pond ( not so big really...) but the ducks love to visit and they crash land and eat bird seed.....
I’m waiting for the perfect idea to come along.... or just go for minnows or guppy’s 😒

what about owls and other critters, are they a danger to your fish pond.

I've been visited by a heron twice.. while only having the hole dug for my future pond... he must of been like "let's get going lazy"

We net our pond year round. There have been foxes, raccoons, snapping turtle and today a Great Blue Heron.

WELL THE BLUE HERON DONT KNOW THAT I HAVE A 25 CAL PCP PELLET AIR RIFLE WAITING FOR HIM THEN IF HE STILL ALIVE MY ROTTIE WILL FINISH HIM OFF

Thank you for your wisdom. Can you tell me if the herons that live south, for instance in Austin Texas where we are, hunt all year long? We have a pair of herons that have shown up and I’m curious if I’m going to have to fight them for the next 6 to 9 months.

My blue heron ate 40 of my goldfish but luckily the left my koi alone I guess this allowed more room in my pond and my koi actually bread and left me with 5 babies I did put a bronze statue of a heron and I think that helps because they say they are territorial

Years ago my mom's husband thought I was stealing her Koi and selling them. For a long time I was the only suspect. One day mom spotted a Heron by the pond. To this day I can't believe he thought it was me. The logistics of that operation seem like more than I would care to tackle.

This is why I now have the world's ugliest looking white pvc framed net. I hate it. But I heard the stories and though "nah, never seen one before" and sure enough sitting up in my second story office one day I look out and because it was so still I didn't recognize there was an enormous bird next to my pond. It took my brain a few seconds to realize something was different and I looked out again to see this monstrous dinasour sized bird and ran down as fast as I could and chased the darn thing off up into the trees. Unfortunately he got my largest prettiest koi around 10 to 12". Build the ugly net after that and saw him flying over a couple times but haven't seen him again that was about a year ago. It was about 8am or 9am not sure about the moon cycle.

Wow ! The barf in the water ? Genius .... today we got back from a dog walk to find a crow eating a fish .. at first i thought it was enjoying the left overs of a herons catch , but after reading up i discovered crows use stale bread to dip in the pond to lure the fish ! Thats also genius

We recently moved to a house with a Koi pond that was not taken care of and going to cost $500 for have it professional cleaned. I recently have been issues with Heron stalking the fish and chased one when I witnessed he had the biggest one in his mouth. Every morning around 6AM he is standing on the brick frame of the pond looking for breakfast. The previous owners had the pond for 12 yrs and never saw a heron. Why would it be now? I live in a city neighborhood and hard to believe they are in this area. I heard they will not stop till all the fish are gone. We have used decoys but that didnt work. We have a net on top and hoping that helps.

Finally finished my pond, put 4 goldfish and 4 koi, about 4 inches long. Started putting in plants. Then one morning making coffee, it happened to me. There was a heron at my pond. Ran out with my dog barking and chased it off. Luckily, that time, no fish lost. I took a fake owl I have and put it by the pond. Then I bought a plastic heron and put the owl away. Heron came back and ate a fish. Very sad. Now I am declaring war. Thanks for mentioning they are protected because I was considering the shotgun, at least until I realized there will always be more herons. Stepping up my game with netting, security cam activating stuff and whatever else I can find, that is not to obnoxious for me to enjoy my pond. Oh, and the owl is back, mounted in a tree next to my pond. Thanks for all your great pond videos! I used them a lot while building mine.

You my friend are correct. A heron ate ALL of the koi in my pond. Thank you for posting this!

We have a 600 gallon Koi Pond right outside our back porch. We have had this pond since 2015. Less than a month ago, a neighbor called our house stating that a huge giant bird was in our pond. My son rushed out the back just in time to see this bird take off. This bird (No one at that time knew what kind of bird), manage to eat all 8 2" baby Kois in a side tank next to the pond. The next day this bird came back in the morning and manage to get a medium size fish. That afternoon around 3 pm, the bird came back but noticed us in the back yard. The bird stayed up on the roof peak of the neighbors house and eventually flew off. I had my son set up an HD camera, that will alert via the app and record motion. Little after 5 pm, my son's app alerted, and he can see the bird, which after watching this video was a Great Blue Heron. The Heron spent 5 minutes choosing a target and stabbed at a rather large Koi, bringing it up and out of the water and managing to throw it out into the yard. The bird stabbed it again, killing it, but it was going to have a problem lifting this large fish. The Heron picked the fish up and was having difficulty in flight, but did manage to take it over the fence and try to mutilate the fish. The neighbors came out scaring the Heron off. The neighbors picked up the mutilated fish and threw it away, so that their dogs don't eat it. That Heron came back an hour later or less, just to return for that meal that was no longer there. With the neighbor and us all out in the back yard, the Heron stayed for about 12 minutes on thinking what to do, and eventually flew off.

The Heron was spotted again, on June 19, 2021 about 4 pm. landing on a neighbors roof peak. Since the beginning of June the pond now has a shade cover over it to keep the pond cool. I hope the shade cover might deter their attempts again. I live in Olathe, KS just outside of Kansas City. There are numerous Blue Herons camped not far at Frisco Lake.

I’ve been fighting one for two years now so far he’s winning

The blue heron is the best. I would make a pond just for that bird.

Wow! Thanks for the tips. I’m a new pond owner and a heron just landed in our suburban yard. 😱

just today my son called me about acouple of duck in our pond. I told him to scare them away. low and behold 3 hours later my daughter calls me screaming that a giant bird is standing on the edge of my pond. I told her to hurry and chase it away. it was a blue heron. she found one koi wounded outside the pond and two koi were missing. I had just started cleaning the pond for spring so the net I had all winter on it was gone. sad that the koi are dead but they were not expensive. still sad because my kids are attached to them.

Not the biggest bird in North America… Whooping cranes are 5 feet tall, sandhill cranes can be 4 feet tall… You’re clearly just reading off of the Internet and have no idea what you’re talking about.

I have been doing ponds as a hobby for 11 years and from day one I have used netting or fishing line or various motion activated items to discourage predators in general. I have only ever seen Herons in Creeks and Rivers. I have had the battles with coons and cats through. The motion activated sprinkler stopped a cat once. It sprayed the cat and startled it so much it fell in the pond and couldn't get away fast enough.

Hi Eric, I have enjoyed your videos for years and always learn a bunch. We live in Colorado and we have a number of rookeries around us. Our pond is on the heron GPS in the early spring, generally in the March-April timeframe, so I try to get the net over the pond in March, they are around until September most years. When we first put the pond in we had it cleaned out twice before we realized what was happening. I have used decoys that I move around daily(worthless, they walk right past them), fishing line over the pond (looked like a scene from mission impossible), motion sensing sprinklers(they move too slow to set it off), a radio talk show on 24x7 (I think they enjoy the ball games) and have resorted to netting the pond throughout the spring and summer because the other deterrents don't work for us. This year we have a young heron that stops by once or twice daily to check and see if we are paying attention, even the netting doesn't seem to bother it. In its youth, it appears to not be afraid as it will fly up when we are out at the pond and ignores the dog barking at it. I am not sure what else to do with this crazy juvenile bird.

Great stuff! Thank you 👍

The best thing would be to lobby to have them removed from "protective" status. There is not a shortage of them, they serve no purpose but to eat bunnies, duckies, puppies, kittens, turtles, birds etc. It does not care if it eats something that is a protected and there is no punishment.

That Blue my mind I didn't know how smart they were. But to your point I used to head to work around 4:30 am- 5am and I always would see a blue heron standing as still as a statue. I didn't know he was stalking!!

I have 5 koi in my pond. All have names, all beloved. Never had a problem. Last month my all white butterfly koi, Luna, was gone. I figured maybe a raccoon. 2 weeks later, I look out my kitchen window and standing right next to my pond is a 4 ft. Blue Heron. I could tell he was the one. I went out and chased him. He didn't even fly far, just up into the trees and he was just waiting. I called my dog out, threw the ball around and as soon as he saw the dog running around, he flew away. The dog and I have chased him away about 5 times now. I'm hoping he views my pond as one of the unsafe areas for him to hunt. But I am working on the fishing wire deterrent plus the floating hexagonal netting system.

My brain just exploded! I did not know this. Thank you for sharing.

I have some Heron’s coming around my pond randomly and they have got my small Koi fish a few times. I didn’t want to net my pond so I put a sheet of ply wood over the shallow end and added some air bubblers and built some rock caves. I also used fishing line around the edges and hung reflective bird deterrent tape from the fishing line with double sided tape. Birds hate the tape and all my fish are doing good now. I’m sure the Heron is still around but not so easy now…

I was ready to kill this blue heron but he outsmarted me, and now I have a swan decoy and that kept care of the heron

Thanks so much Eric for your information about Blue Herons. Being a poet as I am, I find inspiration in the Blue Heron for my poems. And my Ipad, where I write, is at a bay window with a retention pond a few yards away in southern NC. Don’t know if you are a person of faith; but when I went looking for my little house by water with a decent view, I prayed that when I found the right one, an exotic bird would be in the yard. After I looked through the house and was ready to leave to sleep on my decision overnight, I went back one more time to gaze out on the broken down deck. There she was carefully stepping through the yard, a Blue Heron, thin and sleek. Needless to say, I knew I had found my house. I went to your sight because I rarely see a blue heron wading or walking on the banks of the pond these days. However, a white egret or two come pretty much everyday. So, unlike most people I want to attract the Blue Herons. Now it is time to write a poem or two. Meantime, looks like the mallards who flew in a couple weeks ago have been mating this morning on the other side. The pond watcher.

Pretty sure there isn’t one thing ppl have tried to keep heron from a meal at the buffet. Decoys don’t work. Heron are too smart. Water sprinklers don’t work, some will actually get used to the shower. Fishing line around only works if you have several rows so they won’t walk through. No one likes looking at netting. I hate netting. However that is the ONLY thing you can count on. Now here’s an idea viewers may like. I’m a fabricator and can make.virtually anything. So I used 1/4 diameter rod. ( 20 foot lengths ) I bent up big hoops like 4 feet over the water. Hooped it out both ways and made sure it’s like 4 feet away from the edges. Then I draped netting over and staked it in.I live in the golf capital Myrtle Beach SC. We have tons of courses, tons of lakes and ponds. And huge heron. I tried everything else until I did the net. Only took loosing one to a giant heron to get that net up post haste. A few weeks ago I believe it was the same one ( judging by its size) standing in front. Well he soon flew away with an empty belly.

My gf disappeared one day, along with all her stuff. I suspect a blue heron took her.

For our 5K gal koi pond in North Virginia, we tried the usual Heron deterrents with no luck. We purchased a pair of Swan Decoys from the Pond Guy 5 years ago, and haven't seen a Blue Heron since. The decors are so light that they move realistically in the slightest breeze. I anchored the male and teathered the female to his tail. Best, Chip

Crazy! No, I didn’t know that info. Very interesting!

Those west coast herons must be soft. Back east they are known to loiter for days or even weeks in the bitter cold around the one remaining patch of open water on a frozen pond or lake. Before eventually and grudgingly flying south.

The feeder comet goldfish in my pond breed like crazy, seems like all spring and summer. I was worried the adults and frogs would eat all the babies but that was not the case this being the first year of the pond. Now there are about 60 goldfish from the original dozen which I believe could overload the8'x12'x2' average depth pond as the fish get bigger, so maybe a visit from some heron wouldn't be bad.