Each winter brings new challenges to the Medicine River Wildlife Centre and this year it is no different.

Housing a Great Blue Heron can be difficult as they prefer to eat their prey live, but MRWC staff learned a long time ago how to outsmart a heron.

In early November we received a report of a Great Blue Heron hanging around Blackfalds but seemed to be unable to fly.

These herons should be pretty much gone from Alberta by November as the water freezes over and they have no access to their diets of frogs, insects, and fish.

As these birds are normally hibernating by that point in the year, Executive Director of Medicine River Carol Kelly, knew that something was wrong, and it was confirmed when they were able to catch the bird after a brief chase and bring it into the centre.

“The first thing I noticed was, that it was in very good physical condition. Good body weight, good attitude, it didn’t seem to be having anything else, but when I started going into a more in-depth exam, we found one bone broken in the forearm.”

On arrival at the hospital, the bird was examined, and it was determined it was in very good body condition but did have a fracture in the forearm.

The fracture was in the ulna bone and fortunately, the radius bone alongside it acts as a natural splint eliminating the need for surgery or other splints.

“99% of the injuries we see here at the Wildlife Centre are caused by human activity. It could have accidentally run into a wire, so he may have been going down into the water to get food and hit a wire, he could have been clipped by a vehicle.”

Now that the injury was identified, then came the difficult part - convincing the bird to eat.

We have access to cases of frozen smelts, which is the perfect food for it, but how do we convince him to eat something that isn’t living? It was found some years ago that if the water moves, so do the fish, and the bird thinks he is hunting live prey.

Our Great Blue does not like people at all but grew quickly to know when the fish will arrive. Staff cleans the pond daily. While our heron quietly peeks around the corner, they drop the water hose into the empty pond to fill it up.

Next, a bucket of warmed fish is dropped into the pond as it fills and the swirling water does the trick.

Staff quickly leave the room and heron rushes in to eat.

Link to video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ed3uzpdig92zzac/GBHE%202018.mov?dl=0Our winter visitor is flying well now but will be with us until March or April (depending on the weather)and will be released at MRWC’s wetland as soon as is possible.

For questions please contact Carol at 403-728-3467 or carol.kelly@mrwc.ca.