The Great Blue Heron 



The range of this heron extends from the Columbia Val- 

 ley and Venezuela north to Hudson's Bay and Sitka. They 

 are practically gregarious and are altricial. Generally they 

 nest in the tops of trees in swamps or other places near the 

 water and in communities known as heronries. Audubon 

 says that once they have taken possession of a breeding place 

 suited to their taste, they will return to it annually, and repair 

 the old nests until circumstances force them to abandon it. The 

 nests are large and irregularly formed of sticks and lined with 

 smaller twigs. Their structure sometimes is so slight that they 

 tumble to pieces before the young are fit to fly. The eggs, gen- 

 erally four to a clutch, are of an oblong form, larger than those 

 of the domestic hen, and of a light-greenish blue, without any 

 spots. 



Professor W. O. Hendlee, in a very interesting account 

 of a heronry in Rush County, Indiana, says : "Incubation lasts 

 about six weeks, and it is well into summer before the young 

 are able to leave the nest. It is a busy time in the heronry, 

 you may guess, when the young are hatched. They feed on 

 fish. Their principal feeding time is in the afternoon. They 

 place themselves in the shade of a tree by the water, or a 

 drift, or among the reeds and water plants, and patiently wait 

 for their prey, which they seize or impale with their long sharp 

 bills." They breed but once in a season, the young are hatched 

 without plumes ; these develop gradually with maturity. The 

 young remain on the trees until they are as heavy as the old 

 birds and become extremely fat before they are able to fly. 

 After the breeding season is over the communities break up 

 and they wander about singly or in small flocks, and, as Mau- 

 rice Thompson says : 



"Where the water-grass grows ever green 

 On damp cool flats by gentle stream, 

 Still as a ghost and sad mien, 

 With half-closed eye the heron dreams." 



Parkhurst says : "The herons are all alike in the sadly 

 reminiscent, melancholy air that characterizes them in all their 

 attitudes. The heron is the impersonation of gloom, silence 



