Catskill-Delaware Wildlife: Great Blue Heron

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN HAAS Great Blues often feed on mice in meadows but do their best eating at waterways and wetlands like Bashakill Wildlife Management Area. The big birds pad slowly and quietly through reeds and shallow water searching for fish, salamanders, dragonflies and grasshoppers.

Great Blue Heron

The wild, solitary stalker of streams

BY KATHY DALEY Y ou’re outside playing or working when suddenly a shadow falls, accompanied by the sound of slow wingbeats. You look up into a wondrous sight: a Great Blue Heron overhead, almost mysteriously making its quiet presence known.

The bluish-gray wading birds, three-to-four feet tall with a wingspan of at least six feet, appreciate our streams and marshes and occasionally even our fields. In late March and early April, they will wing their way back from warmer climates.

But wait, some of the huge herons are here already... “Most Great Blue Herons winter well south of us but some overwinter here every year,” said John Haas, author of “A Birding Guide to Sullivan County, New York Including the Bashakill Wildlife Management Area.” “At least two Great Blues wintered in the valley this winter in the Wurtsboro/Summitville area,” Haas said. “They’re along the D&H Canal Linear Park (in Wurtsboro) most of the time.”

Soon, “people will see Great Blues passing overhead almost everywhere,” he added. “These birds move from one feeding location to another, which is nature's way of ensuring that no one area is overfished and populations are not depleted.”

PRETTY BIRD, PRETTY BIRD The handsome herons, often featured on Japanese pottery and folding screens, are a joy to experience in person. The largest bird in our

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Baby Great Blue Herons hatch in large nests typically in the canopies of trees, with dozens of the birds feeding and rearing their own offspring in neighboring trees. If you’re lucky enough to locate a colony of Great Blues, be sure to remain at least 1,000 feet away to prevent the birds from abandoning their nests.

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area, the Great Blue gets its name from the grayish-blue feathers on its upper wings, back and tail. Its face is white with a yellow bill, and a pair of black stripes run above the eyes to the back of the head, which sports a plume of black feathers.

In flight, the big birds fold their long necks into an S-shape, their wings flapping and their long, slender legs trailing out behind. They are typically seen as leisurely but can cruise at some 20 to 30 miles an hour when need be.

Great Blues spend 90 percent of their time searching for food. They forage for fish and other prey in slow-moving rivers and streams, swamps, marshes, lakes, and even in meadows.

“They are not just fish feeders,” said Haas. “They consume many frogs and small rodents. People will often see Great Blues in a field and wonder what they are doing there. They are ‘mousing’ for a high protein snack.”

Still, fish is a big feature on the bird’s menu. “Probably one of the most interesting behaviors I see is their ability to eat fish that seem way too big for them to consume,” said Haas. “They often take hours to get a fish down and sometimes have to make considerable efforts.”

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Looking for all the world like a prehistoric creature, the Great Blue dates back to at least 1.8 million years ago, according to fossils found in the Western Hemisphere.

For example, tasty catfish unfortunately bears hard pectoral fins that the fish holds straight out and locked in place. A Great Blue will spend a considerable amount of time rubbing the fish on the ground or on hard surfaces to break the fins in order to swallow the fish.

HIGH-RISE REARING OF YOUNG Though great blue herons hunt alone, they typically nest in colonies, preferably in tall trees.

“Their ‘rookeries’ are assemblages of nests

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occupied by many pairs at one location,” said Haas. “They tend to utilize a rookery for a certain length of time and then relocate to new spots where the branches of the dead trees they nest in are sturdier.”

During breeding season, Great Blues grow long adornment feathers on their backs and breasts and perform a courting dance, puffing up feathers and making elaborate movements, Haas said.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, male Great Blues then go on to collect much of the nest material, gathering sticks from the ground and nearby shrubs and trees and presenting them to the female. She weaves a platform and a saucer-shaped nest cup, lining it with pine needles, moss, reeds, dry grass or small twigs. Both parents take turns incubating their eggs and feeding their chicks.

At about eight weeks old, the young leave the nests and follow their parents to feeding grounds. There they learn to hunt for fish and small rodents. Soon, the gangly young Great Blues will take up lives of relative solitude as they stand motionless searching for dinner or soar majestically in the sky, their shadows moving over the earth like a cloud.

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Bird expert John Haas from Wurtsboro's Bashakill Wildlife Management Area notes that Great Blues’ specialized chest feathers continue to grow and fray, allowing the herons to comb this ‘powder down’ with a fringed claw. They then use the down like a washcloth to remove fish slime from their feathers.

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