I saw a heron today

I live in a fairly nice climate, so there are plenty of wild birds around even though it's a suburban area. There is a river within a mile or two of my houses, and we get geese, common egrets (they're shaped just like my ibis design, but they are solid white and don't have the head plumes), ducks, and many, many more. Today I was surprised to see the stocky, scruffy form of a great blue heron standing miles away from the river, at the edge of a dry field. I was driving, and this bird was about 10 feet away from the street, trying to gulp down some kind of huge rodent. (And here I thought they only ate fish. Live and learn.)

I really wish I could have stopped and taken a photo with my handy camera-phone, but I was on a busy street with those annoying "no parking at any time" signs and no room to pull over out of traffic. I was surprised to see it there; while that field was easily within flying range of the water, it was very inhospitable looking: an acre or so of dry, golden brown, utterly dead grass. It was the kind of place that should attract hawks, not water birds. Perhaps there was too much competition for food at the river.

I was driving slow, but was still past it before I had time to gawk as much as I wanted. It looked like the bird tried to swallow the rodent, but found it too big. It was trying again when I lost sight of it.