THE NIDIOLOGIST. 



23 



A ROOKERY OF THE GREAT BLUE 

 HERONS. 



BY OTTO EMERSON. 



What a joy it is to the field collector in 

 his days afoot, over hills and plains, to find 

 some great rookery of birds, to him nn- 

 known before in his wanderings while un- 

 raveling the secrets of Nature's ways. 

 Who has not had the longing desire to 

 creep in on the home surroundings of those 

 long-legged, great- winged Heron families, 

 on watching some one of them in their 

 mysterious flights to and from some water 

 side, then off to the unknown nesting site. 

 For man}^ years, in my early collecting 

 days, I had watched their movements, so 

 easy and graceful, of long sweep of wings, 

 as they passed high overhead, quivering 

 out their one lone word, kea-e-e-k^ as they 

 went back and forth from the bay shores to 

 high hills, where their homes lay in some 

 quiet, deep-wooded canyon retreat. 



It was some seven years after I began 

 collecting before I could get any clew or 

 information as to the site of this Great 

 Blue Heron's Rookery. At last I met 

 with a ranch lad, who had been to see 

 these long-necked, blue sentinels of the bay 

 shores. He gave me the longed-for direc- 

 tion to their home. 



So one fine April day of 1887, with horse 

 and cart, I struck out with a brother col- 

 lector to hunt them out. We had been 

 told it would be an easy matter to get there 

 and back by noon. So no thought was 

 given as to the inner man's wants. After 

 driving up and down hill for five or six 

 miles we reached the old ranch house di- 

 rected to, and tied up. Then all we had to 

 do, he said, was to follow the trail out on 

 the hill ridge to the end, then down to the 

 rooker}' in the canyon bottom- 

 So out we started, and tramped till the 

 trail vanished to a nothing. No rookery, 

 no water, no grub, no lad to lick, as we 

 should have done had he been near. Call- 

 ing a stop for a council of war under the 

 friendly shadow of a thick shading live oak, 



from the broiling hot noonday sun and hot 

 quivering air, it was decided not to give up 

 that rookery. My comrade said he was 

 after Heron's nests, and should not give it 

 up without a sight of them before returning 

 homeward. Out he started to find a way 

 down, leaving me with traps to await his 

 call, agreed on. Soon I heard the signal. 

 He had got sight of the rookery far down 

 the canyon side, but from the lay of the 

 land, there would be no trespassing there. 

 "We will make a try at it," said I, "at any 

 rate, having come this far." 



On through the tall, yellow wild oats and 

 prickly burr-thistle, going now and then 

 into some ground squirrel's hole, over 

 poison oak shrubs, under wild coffee 

 bushes, now down the side of the hill, we 

 at last could go no further from the thick 

 brush. We dropped ourselves under the 

 shade of a maple tree. No rookery, and far 

 from home! Our burning throats ached for 

 some of the cool, silvery water which could 

 be seen gleaming far below us yet. 



On taking a look about us, there, not 

 twenty-five feet from us, a Heron's nest! 

 We had struck an outlying guard's quar- 

 ters. 



Hark! What was that? A crash through 

 the foliage, and a rush of wings. Off" went 

 a Heron, who had been standing on the 

 edge of its nest resting from the midday 

 heat, as they only move mornings and 

 evenings to and from their feeding grounds, 

 during the nesting period. Looking around 

 further, several other nests were noticed, 

 all out of any reaching distance. All were 

 platforms of large and small sticks, put 

 very loosely together. No eggs could \iz 

 seen in the nests from where we stood. 



As we could get no eggs, we must have 

 something to take back to remind us of our 

 rookery hunt. I had tugged the camera 

 along, so set to work to get an opening to 

 one of the nests for the lens to work. Long 

 branches had to be cut out of the way, and 

 trying to plant the tripods on a hillside of 

 40 degrees was no easy matter. A few of 

 the blue-coats had by this time got courage 



