ting down at this new lake looking for a meal. The DuPage 

 River is just west of the lake and a few miles farther in 

 that direction is the Fox. The Des Plaines River is only 

 about five miles to the east, and that river joins with the 

 Kankakee to form the Illinois just 10 miles to the south. 



To a large heron, these distances are no particular 

 problem. They can routinely travel 15 to 20 miles 

 searching for food, so it would not be surprising if they 

 discovered the lake shortly after those first fish were 

 dumped into it. 



Our rivers have always been highly productive, the 

 Illinois in particular. In pre-glacial times, the Mississippi 

 flowed through this channel, and that history has en- 

 riched the Illinois with a much larger system of oxbows 

 and backwater lakes than a river its present size would 

 normally have. Although pollution, siltation, and river- 

 side development have degraded it, we can reasonably 

 surmise that until quite recently, heron rookeries were 

 common along its banks. 



Our first dated report comes from the Illinois Nat- 

 ural History Survey which recorded black-crowned 

 night herons "present" in the Plainfield area in 1942, but 

 that tells us nothing more than that somebody saw some 

 flying over. Certainly no nesting colonies were dis- 

 covered. 



The first solid evidence of nesting is a color slide of 

 one of the islands taken by Dr. Bruce Wallin of Plain- 

 field, a member of the Will County Audubon Society, in 

 the summer of 1960. The picture plainly shows black- 

 crowned night herons and great egrets nesting in the 

 trees. A bird-finding guide published by the Illinois Au- 

 dubon Society reports the birds as nesting at Lake 

 Renwick from 1961 on. 



When the birders discovered the lake, the informa- 

 tion began to get a little more solid. Beginning in the 

 sixties, Lake Renwick became a regular stop for Chicago 

 area birders. They came in early spring and late fall to 

 look for migrating waterfowl and during the rest of the 

 warmer months for the herons. Birders reported the 

 arrival of the cattle egrets as nesters 15 years ago and the 

 addition of great blues to the mix in the mid-seventies. 



The birding action at Lake Renwick starts in late 

 February when the ice begins to melt. A few great blue 

 herons regularly winter along the Illinois River, and they 

 are probably the birds that appear with the opening of 

 the lake waters. The migrating ducks come early too, 

 mostly dabbling species that feed on aquatic plants grow- 

 ing in the shallow water along the northwest shore. 



The great egrets are next to arrive, beginning about 

 the last week in March. The black-crowned night 



Great egret (breeding plumage) 



Cattle egrets 



John H. Gerard. Alton. L 



herons come in shortly after, and by mid-April, the cat- 

 tle egrets have completed the cast. 



March and April are very busy months around Lake 

 Renwick, as the birds gather sticks for rehabbing nests. 

 There is simply no space left for new nests, so touching 

 up last year's is the only option the birds have. The bird- 

 ers watch from Route 30, since a fence and the company 

 guards prevent them from getting any closer. This is 

 birding of a sort to satisfy the most sedentary. Just pull off 

 onto the shoulder of the highway and look. If you really 

 hate exercise, you don't even have to get out of your car. 

 The rookery islands are about 600 yards away, and the 

 comings and goings of the big birds are easily visible. 

 Binoculars will bring them closer. A spotting scope will 

 put you right on top of them. 



There is one person with a better view. Joe 

 Milosevich is an art teacher and gallery director at Joliet 

 Junior College and the president of the Will County 

 Chapter of Illinois Audubon Society. He lives just a half 

 a mile south of the lake, and for the past four years he has 

 been the official census taker at the Lake Renwick heron 

 rookery. 



Joe is the one lucky soul who has permission from 

 Chicago Gravel to enter company property. He can 

 drive his car to the north shore of the lake, just 200 yards 

 from the rookery islands. From that superb vantage 

 point, he can count nests until the emerging leaves hide 

 them and watch the young of the year begin to explore 

 the world. 



Joe's numbers, added to the somewhat less system- 

 atic numbers of earlier counters, show that the Lake 

 Renwick herons are enjoying a population explosion. 

 Great egrets were building about a dozen nests 15 years 



