Water Gardening: Herons..., 2 by Bonita10

Bonita10 wrote:
Never in a gazillion years could I imagine such a thing as a Heron in the high desert of Arizona. Thankfully I was already a (recent) member of the water gardens forum when our first "culprit attack" took place a week ago last Tuesday.

I went out to visit the Koi before I left for work. I didn't even notice him 'til I was almost at the pond & suddenly, this monster bird takes flight from the edge of the pond. I was in such shock/panic, I started screaming at the top of my lungs (sure that some of our eleven dear aquatic children had just become this behemoths breakfast.....). First my spouse ran out of the house - Then my spouse had the same reaction - and also began screaming! In a matter of moments a neighbor ran over, assuming we'd become victims of a home invasion, she arrived to do what she could to help. While she was relieved that neither of us were being bludgeoned to death, as one of the Koi is her namesake, she too was horrified as we WERE victims of a "home invasion" of sorts. Thankfully, my spouse is a landscaper & can name their own hours........We were also extremely fortunate, as we did have "pond netting" over the area where the Koi are. We had the netting to discourage raccoons and like critters. Again, neither of us had ever conjured a problem such as we encountered that awful morning.

Our neighbor and my spouse immediately used some "portable porch shades" that the neighbor had on their back deck as an interim measure. Given the size of the heron's bill, it was clear that the net would not provide any real protection from the Heron - That bill would puncture the netting w/o any real effort on his part. What the netting DID do for us was that it gave our Koi a little time, as apparently the netting did pose a momentary confusion to the Heron. Also, maniac me must have arrived on the scene very close to when the Heron first arrived. For as we later found out, we did not lose a single Koi. While the spouse and neighbor were working on our "interim fix", I ran indoors & got on the computer assuming I would need to post a new thread titled "Heron". Imagine my surprise, when I saw not only was there a thread already established, how many others - (Yes, even in Arizona!) had similar & in most cases, far worse experiences. I will try to upload a couple of snaps of the "permanent solution" my spouse & spouses' worker spent approximately one and a half-days on building. It may be difficult to tell from the snaps, however, they are six individual "panels" that they built they lay across the top of the pond. We take one panel off when it's just us wanting to feed the "kids" and hang-out and enjoy them a bit. (Though the screen is just large enough on each panel that the 1/4" Koi food will pass through it.) If we are having a large gathering at the house, we will take off all six of the panels - but that is a lot more work, and putting the panels back on after depleting much of one's energy after a full day of backyard entertaining, can become an issue.

However, as I suspect most who subscribe to this forum would agree, if you are not willing to invest both a bit of money and even far more energy, more than likely you have no business getting into ponding, to say nothing of acquiring Koi.

Bonita10