36 
THE CONDOR 
| Voi,. VIII 
Nature has built the heron in an extremely practical way. She dressed him 
in colors of sky and water. She did not plant his eyes in the top of his head, as 
she did the woodcock's, because he is not likely to be injured by enemies from 
above; but she put them right on the lower sloping side of his head, so he could 
look straight down at his feet without the slightest sideturn. She let his legs 
grow too long for perching conveniently on a tree, just so he could wade in deep 
enough to fish. She gave him a dagger-shaped bill at the end of a neck that was 
long enough to reach bottom, as well as to keep his eyes high above water 
so he could see and aim correctly at the creature below the surface. 
The great blue heron is a remarkable fellow in adapting himself to circum- 
stances. In a bird of such long legs and of such proportions one would naturally 
think his nesting place would be on the ground, and in regions where they have 
been undisturbed this is his favorite site. In the lake region of Southern Oregon 
we found the colonies of great blue herons nesting on the floating tide islands, sur- 
rounded on all sides with gulls, cormorants, pelicans and terns. In other parts ol 
Oregon and in California we have found colonies of these same birds living in the 
tallest firs deep back in the forest, or in the sycamores and willows in the midst of 
a swamp. 
During the summer of 1904, while in California, we made several different 
trips to a heronry not very far distant from the densely populated district about 
San Francisco. This heronry was in the center of a narrow wooded belt reaching 
out into the swamp for about a mile. When we approached this thicket we saw 
the trees were well loaded with nests. We skirted the edge of the belt looking for 
an entrance, but to our surprise each place we tried to enter was barred with a 
perfect mass of tangled bushes and trees. We crawled thru in one place for a 
few feet, but over all and thru all was a mass of poison oak and blackberry 
that one could not penetrate. There was not the sign of a path. After hunting 
for two hours, we went to the point opposite the largest tree and decided to push 
and cut our way thru. The first few yards we crawled on hands and knees, 
pushing our cameras or dragging them behind. Unable to crawl further, we had 
to clear a way and climb a ten-foot brush heap. For a few yards we ducked 
under and wiggled along the bed of a ditch in the mire to our knees. I never saw 
such a tangled mass of brush. Fallen limbs and trees of alder, swamp-maple and 
willow interlaced with blackberry briers, poison oak and the rankest growth of 
nettles. All the while we were assailed by an increasing mob of starving mosqui- 
toes that went raving mad at the taste of blood. We pushed on, straining, sweat- 
ing, crawling and climbing tor a hundred yards that seemed more like a mile. 
We forgot it all the minute we stood under the largest sycamore. It was 
seven feet thick at the base, and a difficult proposition to climb. But this was the 
center of business activity in the heron village. The monster was a hundred 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. 
We made the first trip to the heronry on April 21, and found most of the nests 
contained eggs. There were about 700 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’s limbs and in the lower 
surrounding willows and alders. 
