Great blue heron

Flying overhead, they look like something prehistoric. “Maybe a pterodactyl”, a child once said as we watched the bird rise up from the water, seemingly too big and gangly to be so graceful. Watching them land in tall trees, forty feet in the air, and place large sticks in a wide, messy nest seems equally impossible. How can they balance on those tree limbs with such big toes and on such long legs? I love great blue herons (Ardea herodias). I’ve seen them in every wetland I’ve visited, from the Everglades to the Dunes State Park. From the Las Vegas Wash to Fidalgo Bay, Washington. Most often, they’ve been solitary stalkers, lurching forward, then standing completely still waiting for fish or a crayfish or a frog to swim unknowingly near. Then they instantly thrust their long, yellow bill into the water and retract it just as quickly with their prey squeezed between their mandibles. I watched one, a large Asian carp lodged in its throat, fly down the river and wondered if it would survive its over-sized meal.
In late winter or early spring, great blue herons give up their lonely ways and come together in large colonies.We called them rookeries in the Midwest, but here near the Salish Sea, they are called heronries. The March Point heronry in Anacortes, WA has over five hundred nests – some say the biggest heronry in the western US. Herons choose a new mate every year, engaging in elaborate courtship behavior of stick offering, bill clapping and plumage displays. After a successful courtship, the females will lay between 2-6 eggs, sometimes twice in a season if the first young did not fare well, preyed upon by bald eagles or raccoons or even their own siblings. Falls from the tops of the trees are not uncommon before they are ready to fly. I was told that last year, at the March Point heronry, numerous fledglings fell from their nests during a ferocious wind storm. Volunteers, worried about the birds’ safety, rushed to the site, but were only able to save three. Of those, only one survived after its rescue.
But, I think what I like most about the great blue heron, is its call. Perfect for a prehistoric flying bird, it is a deep, guttural “crunk, crunk, crunk”. Imagine what hundreds of these birds sound like when they are gathered together.

Sound of the great blue heron –  https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/65572061/embed/640

 

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). All About Birds: Great Blue Heron. Retrieved from https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Blue_Heron/

 

Eissinger, Anne. (2007). Great Blue Herons in Puget Sound. Puget Sound Nearshore Partnership Report No. 2007-06. Published by Seattle District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle, Washington.Retrieved from http://www.pugetsoundnearshore.org/technical_papers/herons.pdf

 

 

 

Citizen Science

The days have gotten away from me! It seems like everywhere I have worked, there are a couple of months where all the environmental education and outreach to the public is concentrated. In Washington, that time seems to be April and May and I have been so busy! But, part of that time I’ve been lucky enough to help out on some citizen science projects and I’ve gotten some training for other efforts that are in the works. When I lived in Nevada, I participated in an annual bald eagle count on Lake Mead, but I wasn’t aware of any other citizen science opportunities. In Washington, they are so abundant, it is almost overwhelming. Last month was the time for amphibian egg mass counting and the beginning of great blue heron nesting and foraging monitoring. I learned about intertidal and crab monitoring on the Salish Sea and an upcoming effort to watch for signs of climate change in the lowland forests. I received emails from Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology about the Big Day bird count. What’s going on?
Citizen Science can be defined as the participation of ordinary people in scientific work. Anyone, from children to adults, can be taught the skills necessary to observe, monitor or collect data for a particular project. Good projects have protocols developed by scientists and use subject matter experts who review the data for accuracy. Why do scientists use laypeople? Because there is so much work to be done! Volunteers can expand the capacity of a project well beyond the ability of one scientist to collect data. In return, the citizen scientist learns so much and can take pride in contributing to a scientific study. One quick foray into a great blue heron nesting colony (rookery), hooked me on these magnificent birds and sparked my curiosity about their behavior. I am eager to help scientists understand why the herons are forming mega-colonies of hundreds of nests near the Salish Sea and why the colony on Samish Island was suddenly abandoned last year. Most participants feel this same passion. Here are just a few examples of projects that anyone can check out:

http://scistarter.com This is a clearing house for projects, but does not capture all that are available
https://www.inaturalist.org Find a citizen science project or just upload personal nature observations to a database

Butterflies
http://www.monarchwatch.org Monarch tagging and monitoring east of the Rockies
https://monarchalert.calpoly.edu/ Monarchs west of the Rockies
http://www.swmonarchs.org/index.php Monarchs in Arizona and southwestern US
https://monarchlab.org/mlmp Monarch larvae in US and Canada
http://www.naba.org North American Butterfly Association projects
https://www.nps.gov/noca/getinvolved/supportyourpark/butterfly-project.htm North Cascades National Park, WA

Birds
http://www.audubon.org/Bird/cbc Christmas bird count
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbcapps Great Backyard Bird Count
http://www.birds.cornell.edu.pfw Project Feeder Watch
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdsleuth Great resource to learn more about bird projects and school children

Frogs
http://www.aza.org/frogwatch
https://whatfrogs.wordpress.com Whatcom County, WA amphibian projects

Other insects
http://www.lostladybug.org Ladybugs-I’ve done this with little kids. It’s a lot of fun!
https://www.bumblebeewatch.org/ Photograph bumblebees and submit to project
http://xerces.org/dragonfly-migration/migration-monitoring/ Fall and spring movements of dragonflies

Other
http://www.re-sources.org/north-sound-stewards/citizen-science North Salish Sea projects through RE sources