RE : Gopher Resistance - Update - Great Blue Heron

Dear Pam,

Thank you for the kind words - gophers really are pesky critters.

By the way, I had forgotten about the great blue heron till this winter - blue heron also hunt gophers.  Last winter I spoke to an ornithologist acquaintance and he confirmed to me that heron will eat gophers.  I told him I kept seeing a blue heron stalking ever so slowly around my yard but never actually saw the heron catch a gopher (I guess I don't have as much patience as the heron does - standing still waiting for gophers to surface).

The great blue heron are back again this year looking for gophers - I reason the fish and frog population is probably low so heron must resort to hunting a more plentiful species till the spring.  In fact yesterday, two heron were squabbling over my back yard territory.  Since I live adjacent to the Tule River we have lots of her! on around here.  Hopefully the heron will reduce my gopher population because the gophers have become especially active again.

Good luck to you and your clients dealing with gophers.

Linda Starr
Springville Lavender Gardens

Belated thanks for your very informative letter about gophers. I hope I have been able to give my client enough information to succeed in their garden. I am so glad that my garden doesn't have the pesky creatures. I have moles, I think, that leave mounds but don't eat the plants. I gardened in a wildish area down the penninsula once. I planted corn and squash away from the house, where deer were bolder, because I read that deer wouldn't eat them. They didn't, but I watched a corn stalk tremble, then disappear down a gopher tunnel!

 Best wishes,

 Pam Peirce

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