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A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of The Audubon Societies 



Vol. XIX March— April, 1917 No. 2 



The Great Blue Herons of Honeoye 



By VERDI BURTCH 



With photographs by the author 



DOWN through a deep narrow valley in the finger-lake region of western 

 New York, winds the inlet of Honeoye Lake. About two and one half 

 miles from the lake the valley begins to broaden out and the inlet over- 

 flows in springtime on the alluvium and clay beds that it has been bringing in 

 and depositing during the centuries to form an oozy, treacherous swamp. This 

 swamp is covered with a forest of ash, elm, and maple trees, and is full of fallen 

 logs in various stages of decay. 



Here the valley is 800 feet above the sea-level and the wooded hills are very 

 steep and rise 1300 feet to 1400 feet above the valley on either side. 



In January, 1914, our game-protector told me of the large nests that he 

 had seen in this swamp, and from his description I at once knew that they were 

 the nests of the Great Blue Heron. 



May 24, 1914, a charming automobile ride of twenty-four miles over and 

 through the glaciated hills brought us to the upper end of the swamp. Long 

 before we were there we could see the nests of the Herons high up in the dead 

 tops of the ash trees which were above the other trees in the forest. It did not 

 take us long to get into the midst of them, where the great birds were flying 

 to and fro or were perched on or above the nests. They were not nearly so 

 wild as the Lake Lamoka Herons which we visited the year before, for these 

 left the vicinity of the nests as soon as we came among them and after a long 

 time came scouting around only to leave again as soon as they glimpsed us. 



These Honeoye birds acted more like our old Potter Swamp birds of twenty 

 years ago, and who knows but that they may be direct descendants of the 

 Potter Swamp birds, their ancestors having moved to Honeoye after Potter 

 Swamp was despoiled of its forest. 



We counted seventy-six nests that we could see from the road, and there 

 must have been a few that we could not see. Many of these nests held young 

 and nearly every nest had an old Heron or two either on or above it. 



