Swimming Herons?

I assume that any bird (or other animal) that lives in close proximity to water needs to be able to swim but I hadn't really thought of many of the wading birds as swimmers. At the Albuquerque zoo on Tuesday there were 3 Black-crowned Night Herons ( 2 adults and 1 yearling). The two adults would routinely attack the sub-adult and knock it off whatever rock it had perched on forcing it to swim. These are free flying birds that are at the zoo because of the ready availability of fish. In fact they would wait for people to feed the ducks (and the fish) then swoop down for dinner. Are Night Herons usually this territorial? Do they regularly swim? Just wondering after watching them. Thanks for any information.

I certainly have never seen this bird swimming (or any other wading bird for that matter) and I recently did a presentation on wading birds and didn't come across the habit of swimming for any of them. . . quite unusual.

I have seen both a great egret and great blue heron dive in the water after prey and float on top of the water for a few seconds, but never swim. Interesting photo.

Jeff

I've never seen any wading bird swim, but all water birds must be able to....don't they??
I suppose part of it may be that we never think "heron" when seeing a bird swimming, so might miss it.
This proves it happens! nice catch!
sandy r

They must have oily feathers to survive the constant water contact so they must be able to swim but like others I have never seen a heron swim. Good catch.

Hmmm I shoot wading birds here in Fl all the time and have never seen it. Great catch

Herons of all varieties are one of my favorite subject but I've only seen them swim once and that was a Great Blue.