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
Finding My Place 