With its striking plumage, the great blue heron is one of the most widely recognized wading birds in North America. Poised motionless on the water"s edge on a misty morning or nesting in the limbs of old-growth forests, this stately bird is a familiar sight on the coast of British Columbia. In this work, Robert Butler follows the great blue heron through a year on this coast. He draws on more than ten year"s work to throw light on its adaptability to adapt to a temporate climate, its diet and foraging habits, breeding, biology, dispersal and demography, habitat use and conservation.