EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Heron with Lunch

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias cognata), Family Ardeidae
Bartolomé Island, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Explanation:  Lunch time!  Enjoying the surfeit of the surf is this Great Blue Heron.  We are on Bartolomé Island, one of the tinier islets of the Galapagos Island archipelago off the coast of (and belonging to) Ecuador.  

This is the locally endemic subspecies of Great Blue Heron -- subspecies cognata -- found only on these islands.  

Here, these herons enjoy projection in their island isolation.  They feed largely on fish caught in the surf.  This is a feeding behavior I have rarely if ever witnessed in this species in other parts of the world, suggesting a unique behavioral entity here in these always-surprising islands that Darwin made famous (or vice versa).  

On these islands, Great Blue Herons breed year-round and nest singly, often within the mangrove thickets that border some island shores.