How the Green Heron Wandered 207 



a week. I think it safe to say that no green heron entered the 

 bay without being observed by the manager or myself. 



The scanty information so far collected by us had upset 

 the previously recorded time schedules of the bird. It had 

 been thought that the green heron's fall migration from 

 Oregon, the northern limit of its range, began early, the 

 latest date being September 10. But this bird had been seen 

 as late as November 4, two hundred miles north of Oregon 

 and far beyond its "normal" range. It meant a decided revi- 

 sion in the status of the green heron in the Pacific Northwest. 



Any thought of a regular pattern in the marsh visits was 

 dispelled by the deviation in the next year. A bird arrived 

 quite in accordance with the previous schedules, but its de- 

 parture was decidedly out of line. I saw it through Septem- 

 ber, in October, and during the Thanksgiving and Christmas 

 holidays. What kind of a creature was this? Why should a 

 bird which had specialized on living in the blistering heat of 

 southwestern river swamp bottoms remain in the north to 

 endure the drip of fall and early winter? On each of my trips 

 I expected to find that it had gone, but it was there in Jan- 

 uary when I went to check it after a severe snowstorm. It 

 stood under the shelter of an arch made by lodged cattails 

 and looked as if it had never lived anywhere else. My last 

 sight of it was on February 11. To those who might think 

 that this bird may have been the eastern heron which is 

 known to winter occasionally in the northeast, I will say that 

 no eastern green herons have ever been taken in this state; 

 on the contrary, every green heron which has been examined 

 has proved to be the Anthony. The American Ornithologists' 

 Union check list says of this bird: "Breeds or summers from 

 Portland, Oregon, to Lower California, Southern Arizona, 

 and Northern Sonora, Mexico. Winters from Southern Cali- 

 fornia, to Southern Mexico and Central Costa Rica/' 



I found these conditions difficult to explain. I knew that 

 many kinds of birds did wander but more of them did not. 



