Bird of the Month: Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron. Photo by Jeff Bryant.
By Roger Digges, CCAS Vice-President
While April featured Champaign County’s smallest summer resident, June calls attention to its second largest and very recognizable bird, the Great Blue Heron. This tall, long-legged heron can be found near or in permanent streams, lakes, and ponds. Even from a distance, the great blue (actually blue-gray) with its distinctive S-shaped neck and long “dagger-like” bill can be easily identified as it stands stock-still waiting for its prey—fish, frogs, snakes, anything in the water—to come within reach. Then it strikes suddenly with that lethal bill and pulls its meal out of the water. Even when the bird is flying far off, its slow, majestic wingbeats tell you it’s a Great Blue Heron 99+% of the time. Very rarely you may see our county’s largest bird, the Sandhill Crane, easily identified by its long straight (not S-shaped) neck and its iconic rolling, bugle-like call.
Unlike the other species we have learned about in Bird of the Month, Great Blue Herons nest in colonies that can range in size from just a few nests to more than 500, all located high in tall trees. Herons will come back to these nests year after year until, eventually, the trees begin to die, the nests begin to fall apart, or there is too much human interference. Because these magnificent birds are sensitive to people getting too close to their heronries, it’s best, if you find one, to keep your distance, and probably not mention its location. Herons locate colonies near good food sources so they don’t have to fly far from their nests to catch prey for their young. Great Blue Heron males gather sticks from the ground, trees, shrubs, or even unguarded nests, and give them to the female who can take from 3 to 14 days to weave them into a foundation or add them to an existing nest, then create a nest cup from softer materials. Nests range in size from 20 to 48 inches, depending on how many times it’s been added on to. The female will lay 2 to 6 eggs, and she and her mate will incubate them for about 4 weeks. Both adults will feed the nestlings for another 7 to 12 weeks, before young great blues are ready to forage for themselves.
The best place to find Great Blue Herons in Champaign County is any permanent stream, lake, or pond, although they may also hunt in temporary bodies of water. Since they don’t eat anything you might buy for your bird feeder(s), there are only two ways to attract them to your yard. One way is to buy property near a permanent body of water, preferably heavily wooded without much human activity. The other way is to build a fish pond, which, unfortunately will soon be a fishless pond unless you provide places for your fish to hide from these skilled hunters, something like a length or two of pipe. Even then, your fish may still prove to be a feast for herons. Providing seed or suet for songbirds is one thing, buying expensive fish every few weeks quite another! There are plenty of fish for Great Blue Herons in our rivers and larger wetlands.
How are Great Blue Herons doing? Their population is stable at around 700,000 birds and has slowly increased over the past half century. However, according to All About Birds, “Because Great Blue Herons depend on wetlands for feeding and on relatively undisturbed sites for breeding, they are vulnerable to habitat loss and human….intrusions that can disrupt nesting colonies.” Take some time to seek out these remarkable birds this summer in wetlands or in the sky in the early morning or late evening as they travel to and from feeding sites, and be an advocate for protecting wetlands.
Great Blue Heron in flight. Photo by Jeff Bryant.