In a Heron Village 225 



heron likes a remote fishing preserve of his own, but he 

 loves to live in a small village community, to which he can 

 return each evening and enjoy the social life among his 

 neighbors and dwell in mutual protection. 



He is a remarkable bird in adapting himself to cir- 

 cumstances. In a bird of such long legs and of such pro- 

 portions, one would naturally think his nesting place would 

 be on the ground. In the lake region of southern Oregon 

 we did find the great blue heron nesting on the ground, 

 surrounded on all sides by gulls, cormorants, pelicans, and 

 terns. But in other portions of our country a colony of 

 these same birds will select the tallest firs, deep back in 

 the forest, or the sycamores, willows, and maples in the 

 midst of a swamp. 



We made the first trip to the heronry on April 2 ist, and 

 found that most of the nests contained eggs. There were 

 about seven hundred nests in the whole colony, of which 

 the larger number were black-crowned night herons'. 

 The great blues and the night herons occupied the same 

 trees, nesting side by side. The larger nests were built 

 almost entirely in the tops of the sycamores, while the 

 night herons set their platform nests at the very upturned 

 tips of the sycamore limbs and in the lower surrounding 

 willows and alders. 



When I first climbed in among the nests of a smaller 

 tree with my camera, it sounded as if I were in the midst 

 of a gigantic hen-house. Some of the birds were clucking 

 over their eggs that were soon to be hatched ; others were 

 cackling over newly laid eggs and squawking at being dis- 

 turbed; others were wrangling and squabbling, so that 

 there was a continual clattering fuss above which one had 



