Maybe I’ve just been getting lucky this year, but I seem to have been spotting a fair number of great blue herons. Some years, these rather large birds are fairly rare. This year, I’m certainly not finding that.
In fact, this morning I may have been guilty of driving out of my lane a bit. Instead of paying attention to the road, I was looking up, trying to figure out what was flying over me. It was a fair sized bird, but it seemed to have a long tail. I finally figured out the long tail wasn’t a tail. It was legs. Then I noticed the neck was sort of bent back toward the shoulders and finally clued into what it was. And managed to get back on the correct side of the road.
But that was the third great blue heron I had seen this week. Or the same one three times. It’s hard to tell. But they were in three very different places, so I suspect they were different birds.
I have been seeing pictures others have been taking of different wading birds around the province. There were a couple of juvenile green herons causing a bit of a stir. Someone managed to track down an American bittern, which isn’t easy, because they are really good at looking like a stick. And there have even been pictures of a little blue heron.
But seeing lots of herons seems like it might be good news. Herons eat little fish. If there aren’t enough little fish around, I wouldn’t be seeing herons. And little fish, if the herons and everything else that feeds on them don’t eat them all, will grow into big fish. The I can catch them. So I like seeing herons.
But they are also pretty impressive looking birds. I did come across a nest once. It was high in a tree, and if it wasn’t for the young herons loudly demanding food, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Then I had to climb a nearby tree and sit in the branches watching the young herons for a while. I’d call them little herons, but I don’t think they are ever really little.
I like seeing these birds though. Hopefully, we keep seeing more.
