The Great Blue Herons 



be concealed, so the colony seeks 

 protection in the depths of a tule 

 swamp ; or else resorts to the heights 

 of forest trees difficult or impossible 

 of access. Sycamore trees are favor- 

 ites in central and southern Cali- 

 fornia, while firs or redwoods are 

 utilized in the northwestern coun- 

 ties. The larger trees are likely to 

 be the most heavily tenanted ; and 

 sometimes a single tree, rearing 

 aloft from the depths of a not easily 

 accessible swamp, will be crowded 

 with nests. 



Air. William L. Finley, in 

 company with his alter ego, Mr. 

 Herman T. Bohlman, visited one of 

 our largest colonies near San Fran- 

 cisco in 1904, and found 1 it in an 

 unusually prosperous condition. The 

 Great Blues were nesting in company 

 with the Black-crowned Night Her- 

 ons, whose untidy bunches of sticks 

 were relegated to the extremities of 

 the sycamore branches, or to the 

 lower levels of the surrounding wil- 

 lows and alders. A great sycamore 

 seven feet through at the base was 

 the center of activity in the heron 

 village. "The monster was a hun- 

 dred and twenty feet high and had a spread of limbs equal to its height. 

 In this single tree we counted forty-one blue heron nests and twenty-eight 

 night heron nests: sixty-nine nests in one tree. In another tree were 

 seventeen of the larger nests and twenty-eight of the smaller." These 

 gentlemen estimated 700 nests as the equipment of the entire colony, 

 with those of the smaller birds preponderating; and from a single elevated 

 station counted over 400 eggs in sight at once. 



Since the nests in this mild climate contain eggs by the 25th of 

 March or the 1st of April, a visit should be paid to a heronry about the 

 first or second week in May, if one would experience the most striking 

 sensations. In the absence of the old birds, the youngsters, awkward, 



Taken in California 



Photo by Finley and Bohlman 



A "FROZEN" HERON 



1 Condor, Vol. XIII., March, 1906, pp. 35-40. 



18% 



