Two heads are better than one!

I am so accustomed to seeing the herons and egrets on the Bayou that sometimes I fail to notice their full actions.  They wade about the shallows all the while scooping up any minnow or tiny crab that crosses their path.  These are solitary birds.  They rarely are together even with those of their own kind other than at roosting time.  During the day, the birds go their separate ways and find their own food.  It is unusual to ever see two herons or two egrets working together as a team.  It is ever rarer still to see an egret and a heron pair up to work for a meal.  Today, I saw the unusual.

From the pier, I watched as a Great Blue Heron and a Great Egret banded together for their noontime meal.  Each had waded into an area that was teaming with little mullet but neither was getting its fill. The egret's head would bob down and it would come back empty beaked.  The heron would do much the same.  Those mullet were just far too fast for either bird to get more than an occasional mouthful.  Then something strange happened.  The birds waded closer together and corralled the tiny fish in a small cove in the marsh edge.  When the school of mullet tried to swim to the left, the heron would attack..when they swam to the right, the egret went on the move!  Teamwork!  Each bird knew that alone neither would fill its tummy but together they were able to gorge themselves on the trapped mullet.  A seafood buffet was theirs for the taking!

For a good twenty minutes or so, the birds cooperated and ate well.  Afterwards, the egret flew off to the west and the heron stayed on the pier post.  Will it occur to them that this could profit the two of them from this day forward?  Will they be back tomorrow working as a team?  Probably not.  This was most likely just a fluke of nature but it was fun to watch.