136 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE 



brownish or grayish; the Blue Heron on the contrary has a bill as sharp 

 as a dagger, the head always well feathered and usually with elongated 

 occipital plumes, while the general tone of the plumage is always bluish. 



Distribution. — North America from the Arctic regions southward to the 

 West Indies and northern South America. Bermudas; Galapagos. 



The largest and probably, all things considered, the most frequently 

 seen of any of our herons. While it feeds largely at night and is most 

 active at morning and evening, yet it fishes more or less all through the day, 

 and may be seen quietly watching or slowly walking along the edges of 

 pond or stream at almost any time. It is rather wary and hard to ap- 

 proach, but quickly learns to avoid dangerous places and to know those 

 where it is safe. Its height enables it to look over the tops of the tallest 

 grass and it seldom becomes so absorbed in its pursuit of fish or frogs as to 

 allow the hunter to come within shooting distance, unless indeed the 

 murderer is armed with a rifle. 



The Blue Heron feeds mainly on fish and frogs, but also eats immense 

 numbers of crayfish, small snakes, salamanders, insects (among them 

 grasshoppers), meadow mice, and almost anything of an animal nature. 

 So far as we know it never eats vegetable substances of any kind. 



It breeds almost always in communities, placing its bulky nest of sticks 

 and twigs on the highest branches of swamp trees, often selecting those 

 which are dead. Sometimes several nests are placed on the same tree, 

 and frequently 150 to 200 nests may be seen in a single heronry. The 

 same place is resorted to year after year unless the birds are seriously 

 disturbed. Probably every county in the state has, or recently has had, 

 one or more of these heronries, but as the timber has been cut off and the 

 swamps and marshes have been drained the birds have been driven from 

 their nesting places until they are now found only in the more favorable 

 spots. They are still far from rare however, and the location of more than 

 twenty flourishing heronries of this species is known to us at present. 

 The eggs are commonly three to five, bluish green, unspotted, and average 

 2.50 by 1.50 inches. The same nests are repaired and used year after year, 

 and the eggs are laid rather early, in Kalamazoo county by the middle of 

 April, and probably by the first of May in the northern part of the state. 



This species arrives from the south from the middle to the end of March 

 and remains usually through October, while single individuals linger 

 occasionally much later. One was killed in the streets of Lansing by a 

 poHceman, December 23, 1897. 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



Adult in breeding plumage: Forehead, crown, chin, and most of sides of head pure 

 white; a lieavy black stripe over each eye, uniting in a black drooping crest on the occiput 

 where the longest feathers reach a length of 8 or 9 inches; upper parts, including most of 

 wing-coverts and secondaries, light slaty blue; most of back feathers (scapulars and inter- 

 scapulars) elongated into bluish or creamy-white slender tips; throat and breast grayish- 

 white, or brownish-wliite, heavily streaked with black, the feathers of the lower neck 

 with elongated narrow wliite or buffy tips; a large deep black patch, with some white, 

 on each side of the breast; belly pure black with some white streaks; under tail-coverts 

 pure wliite; thighs (tibia;) and bend of wing clicstnut; primaries black. Bill yellow, 

 darker on culmen; iris yellow; legs and feet black. After the breeding season the occipital 

 plumes are shed and the plumage becomes duller and grayer. Sexes alike. Immatiu-e: 

 No long plumes; no white on the head, the entire crown being blackish; chestnut markings 

 paler or wanting; upper parts dull gray, often rusty; under parts streaked with ashy and 

 blackish. Length 42 to 50 inches; wing 17.90 to 19.85; culmen 4.30 to 6.25; tarsus 6 to 8. 



