RIP to my ogons

[xxxgotchipsxxx]

well i took my koi out the house and put them in my pond.... and 2 days ago i was outside at 930pm and i heard feathers ruffling.. so i looked in the tree and all of a sudden a heron dive bombed my dam pond and ran off with one of my plat. ogons    and im also missin another plat. ogon  soooo im guessing the dam bird got em they were not big only like 4 inches   so now i only got 3 koi in the pond and 2 in the house in the 55 gall i got   im in the process of taking 1 more koi into the pond ...  he is be enough to go in the pond now .. im sure he will be very happy  the other one i got is a gin rin  with blue in it and he is still to small to go in the pond ...

[xxxgotchipsxxx]

the darker spots u see in the pic is other fish that live in the pond... they are BRIM (sunnys)  and there is about 300 of them ..  atlest i didnt loose to much moneytho when the bird ran off with my 2 plat. ogons   i only paid about 20 bucks for both...   i guess im going to have to keep them in the house till they get a lil bit bigger

[xxxgotchipsxxx]

some pics

[Esther]

Of course that stupid bird will take the prettiest fish. He probably doesn't even see the others. GRRRRR. OK, net the thing (no I don't mean the heron but it's a thought). I have a short (maybe 1.5' high) fence made out of deck spindles with two pieces of clothesline rope going through them around my pond. I have planted marginals under the fence to fill in and the heron hasn't bothered my fish since.  Before I put up the fence after the first heron visit, I learned they came early in the morning before I was up. I put a radio on the porch on a talk channel for three days before I had time to put up the fence hoping the heron would hear the talking or music and it would scare him away. Don't know if it worked though.

[LynneNY]

Esther, do you have a picture of your fence that you could post here?  We also have been having a heron problem and not that my fish have warmed up this spring I want to nip things in the bud before that pterodactyl gets any more!!!

[xxxgotchipsxxx]

im just shocked that heron prey at night...  i never knew that and im a BIG bird fan     i have had birds of all kinds before from heron to blue jays..  i would find them injured or just babies that fall out of trees and nurse them back to health it just somthing i like to do...

[miguynmkoi]

So sad to see you lost your beautiful fishies!  I used to love seeing egrets and herons in the wild....I don't live in the wild and neither should those dratted egrets and green herons!  My ponds are draped in bird netting and the local green heron keeps checking to see me slip up 

[Esther]

Here's a picture of the fence. It is only 36" deck spindles cut in half and I angle cut one end to pound in the ground. I drilled two holes through the spindles and ran nylon rope through the holes and tied knots at the end posts. I put it out every spring and take it down in the fall. But then I don't need it all the way around seeing I have a boardwalk around part of it. Then I put another spindle on the other side of the steps getting in the pond and attached a screen door hook to the rope and eye screws to that other spindle. That way kids or predators won't use those steps to get in. This fence by no means is meant to be a safety fence. It may deter kids or dogs but won't stop them.



I have heard that herons like to land in shallow water or land away from the pond and walk in. They will not climb over or under the fence and I've heard they don't like to walk through tangly growth.

[Pondering]

I'm sorry to hear about your ogons too... and i don't even know what they are but i'll look it up right after i post. 

Esther your pond looks beautiful  i'll have to go see if i can find more pics of it after i find out what an ogon is 

[Julles]

Sorry to hear about this, Chips.  Those were beautiful fish.

[ThornyGardener]

I'm sorry about your fish. It seems like we ponders are always battling something and that something too often wins.

I am surprised to hear that the heron 'dive bombed' the pond as I had always been told they walked in/landed in shallow water. I went to a lot of trouble and expense to build a straight-sided pond for this very reason. Does anyone else have experience of a heron air attack?

[marla]

sorry about your fish, I have lost to many to heron, I now net the ponds for the last 4 years, Esther I love the rope fence, maybe I will try that, looks lots nicer then my nets