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The Jax Files is an interactive, quick-hitting blog devoted to any and all things Pasco, whether whole-heartedly, tangentially or merely psychologically.

Tom Jackson:

Tom Jackson is in a 12-step program for recovering sports writers; as part of his rehabilitation, he writes a column centered on the people, politics, passions and peculiarities of Pasco County. Email

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Pasco County News | Breaking News

Curious case of the curious little blue heron

Posted Sep 26, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Sep 26, 2011 at 08:35 PM

Do not be misled by the pictures included with this modest offering. Our little photo essay scarcely illustrates another of those precious unlikely-pals-of-the-wild-kingdom stories. It is, instead, a tale of deliciously unfathomable curiosity. The now-adolescent alligator that inhabits—presumably high atop the local food chain—the wetlands and pond by the Tribune’s newsroom/distribution center in Wesley Chapel, and whose progress toward adulthood we have been following for a couple of years, attracted the attention of what by anyone’s reckoning could only be described as great risk-taking by a little blue heron.

The bird in question broke from its wading and fishing chores not long after the gator emerged and thumped down on the bank of its personal swimming hole. Head constantly bobbing and swiveling, and moving on reedy legs, the heron crept—for reasons known only to

birds of a similar feather—one careful, slow-motion step at a time ever closer to the reptile as it basked on the bank. It closed, ultimately, to inside 10 feet, where it paused to scratch a literal itch. Whether the heron meant to creep any farther we shall never know.

Flushed by the howl of a single-engine turbo-prop passenger airplane taking off from the adjacent air strip at Tampa North Flight Center, the gator splashed into the pond and the heron, too, took flight, ending the suspense and making it possible for us to report that no animals were harmed in the production of this blog entry.