Blue Crane or Heron, Plate 307. John James Audubon (1785 - 1851). London: Havell, 1827-38. Aquatint Engraving. 25 1/4 x 37 1/4 inches sheet, 37 x 49 1/2 inches framed. “You may see this graceful Heron, quietly and in silence walking along the margins of the water, with an elegance and grace which can never fail to please you. Each regularly-timed step is lightly measured, while the keen eye of the bird seeks for and watches the equally cautious movements of the objects towards which it advances with all imaginable care. When at a proper distance, it darts forth its bill with astonishing celerity, to pierce and secure its prey; and this it does with so much precision, that, while watching some at a distance with a glass, I rarely observed an instance of failure.”
- Audubon’s Ornithological
Biography.