Unwelcome Pond Visitor removal advice.

[SwampDonkey]

Even down on the bald headed prairie? I suppose they could hold out in the slews and along rivers. 

[Jeff]

A new predator to my fish while I am away. Sat and watched helplessly on live camera.

Devil with the blue dress on

[SwampDonkey]

Neighbor's here with trout ponds always fought with great blue herons. I seem to be in the flight path of a pair that I have seen now for 3 years. That and the occasional bald eagle floating bye. Bitterns eat fish and frogs and snakes. Got them around here too in the wetlands. When you hear them, they sound like they are dropping stones in water. They have to gulp a bunch of air to make their call. A weird way to sing. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I think I read somewhere mink like to eat heron eggs. Just sayin...

[Resonator]

I think those birds are federally protected under the law, may want to check with the Michigan DNR.
"Always good to heron the side of caution, rather than do something you might egret."

[Jeff]

They are, I can't touch it, but I have a solution that worked last year.  I stake off the shallow shore water, run a cotton string about thigh high to me, then hang chunks of mardigras beads. The birds will not land in deep water, and will not walk into the string.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Several years ago we were fishing in our local QCOE lake and one flew up and lit on a dead limb about 10-15 ft above the lake. The limb broke and he fell in. He finally flopped his way to shallow water and walked out. I guess that happens more often than people think. We have pictures of bald eagles falling from a broken limb but it was high enough he recovered before he hit the ground.

[thecfarm]

I saw one take flight off from a limb when I was about 15. I was somehow looking right at it, and saw it unfold itself to take off. I almost run the other way!!!!
Was the weirdest thing I have even seen.

[aigheadish]

I'm not sure why but I find it hilarious when a bird or squirrel breaks a tree limb. The surprise of it for them always makes me laugh.

[YellowHammer]

We have one clumsy squirrel that seems to miss about once a week.  He lives in a big hickory in front of our barn and we will be working out there and hear a "plop" as the stupid squirrel hits the ground, shakes it off and runs back up into the tree.   

[WV Sawmiller]

I'm not sure why but I find it hilarious when a bird or squirrel breaks a tree limb. The surprise of it for them always makes me laugh.

We have one clumsy squirrel that seems to miss about once a week.  He lives in a big hickory in front of our barn and we will be working out there and hear a "plop" as the stupid squirrel hits the ground, shakes it off and runs back up into the tree. 

When I was 16-17 or so I had what was probably the worlds best squirrel dog. Bertha would smell and see them and would not tree till she was right on them. She would chase squirrels, coons and possums up saplings and such to get away. It was not uncommon to go kill 15-20 squirrels in an afternoon with her.

  One summer/early Fall the scuppernongs were starting to get ripe and a pesky squirrel was getting into them. We had a big horizontal arbor about 7-8 ft high made of wooden posts. Bertha would ignore the squirrel till I got home from school Bertha would go chase the squirrel who had a regular route down the arbor jump to a nearby water oak limb then follow the connecting oak limbs along an old fence line to the woods and tall pines behind our house. It was pretty much a game for both of them with the squirrel running and jumping and Bertha running and barking below.

  One day I came home and they started their normal routine but something had changed. Mama had decided the limbs needed trimming. My mom would get a 10' step ladder and lean it against a tree. climb up sawing off every limb she could reach with a 2' long handsaw till she got to the top of the ladder where it clearly says "THIS IS NOT A STEP" and stand on the top and reach and saw as far as she could reach. She had "pruned" (butchered?) the limbs on the water oaks along the old fence line.

  The squirrel made his leap from the arbor and barely made it. He ran along 2-3 more trees and climbed higher from some extra reach and made a mighty leap only to find his limb was gone. He must have been 35-40 feet high and I wish I had a video of the "Oh Crap!" look on his face as he spread as wide as he could and rushed to the waiting Bertha below. He hit the ground and rushed to the base of the nearest young water oak and made several circles around the base with Bertha snapping at him. While she come times caught squirrels like that this one was more fortunate and escaped with only the loss of most of his tail hairs.

  Mama continued her tree trimming until she was in her mid 60's. My brother walked around the house one day and heard her screaming and found her bear hugging a large cedar 10' above ground  in the back yard with her hand saw and fallen ladder below her. He righted the ladder and she got down mostly intact and turned 95 back in April but leaves the limbs, or at least the ones requiring a ladder, alone.