SUPPLEMENT TO BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY 67 



81 [194] Ardea herodias herodias Linn. 



Great Blue Heron; "Crane." 



Common transient visitor. March 15 to June 11 (summer) ; July 15 to 

 November 23; December 2, 3 and 13. 



I still have no record of this bird breeding in the County although I have 

 seen it a number of times throughout June and July. On December 13, 191 1, 

 Mr. A. P. Stubbs found three of these birds on the shores of Forest River, Salem. 



Occasionally one may see these birds in migration. Thus on April 5, 1913, at 

 4.30 P.M., I saw four near Lynn rise from the salt-marsh and circle upward by 

 slow wing-beats. When they had attained a considerable height, they made off 

 in a straight line toward the north. At Ipswich, on October 28, 1917, at 5 p.m., 

 a flock of twenty of these great birds flew south high up over the marshes in a 

 loose V- or U-formation. 



On August 7, 1907, at Ipswich, a fine adult Great Blue Heron flying high in 

 the air was pursued by a screaming Common Tern who darted at it from behind 

 and from above. The heron screamed hoarsely, stretched out and around its 

 long neck and partly dropped its legs. The feathers of its head were erected. The 

 tern attacked again and the scene was repeated. It reminded one of an old 

 hawking picture. 



The Great Blue Heron, like all of his tribe, walks with long strides, but even 

 such a stately bird may at iimes act in a strange and undignified manner. Thus 

 on April 27, 1919, I saw two of these herons on the beach at Ipswich and later, 

 on examining their tracks, I found that one had interrupted his walk by hopping 

 with both feet together three or four feet at a hop for five hops. 



82 [196] Herodias egretta (Gniel.). 

 Egret. 



Accidental visitor from the South. July 30 to November 22. 



There have been a number of visits of this interesting bird to Essex County 

 in the last fifteen years, and, as it is now not allowed to be shot, birds have been 

 seen by a number of people. A record, overlooked in the original Memoir, is of 

 one shot at Ipswich on November 22, 1892, and mounted bv \^ickary.^ Damsell 



1 Ornithologist and Oologist, vol. 17, p. 165, 1892. 



