In this age of death and destruction to all living creatures, which,
because of their size or edible qualities, the so-called sportsman is
proud to exhibit as evidence of his skill afield, it is remarkable that
there should exist within twenty odd miles of New York’s City Hall a
colony of Herons which would do credit to the most remote swamp of
Florida.
Three factors have combined to render this rookery possible: first, its
isolation; second, the habits of its occupants; and third, the
protection which is afforded it by the owner of the land on which it is
situated. Of these, the first is by far the most important, and I may be
pardoned, therefore, if I do not betray the birds’ secret; for, much as
I desire to encourage American industries, I must on this occasion
withhold information of undoubted value to the feather trade.
The birds’ habits contribute toward their preservation, because they are
largely nocturnal, “Night” being the specific name applied by the
text-books to this particular kind of Heron; but to those who know him
in nature, he is generally spoken of as “Quawk,” this being an excellent
rendering of his common call.
The Night Heron or Quawk belongs among the birds for whom the setting
sun marks the beginning of a new day—a fact which protects him from man
and permits his existence in numbers where others of his family are
rarely seen. Doubtless many of the residents of Heronville know their
feathered neighbors only as a voice from the night, which comes to them
when the birds, in passing over, utter their loud and startling call.
Finally, to the protecting influences of a love for seclusion and
darkness must be added the unusual position assumed by the proprietor of
the land, who will not permit any one to kill the birds, and, stranger
still, does not kill them himself!
Thus it happens that any day in May or June, the months during which the
Herons are at home, one may leave the crowded streets of New York and
within an hour or so enter an equally crowded but quite different kind
of town.
If after leaving the train you secure the same guide it was my good
fortune to have, your way will lead over shaded roads, pleasant fields,
and quiet woodland paths, and, if the sun is well up in the trees, you
may enter the outskirts of the rookery and be wholly unaware, unless you
approach from the leeward, that between two and three thousand Herons
are within a few hundred yards of you.
One may gain a far better idea of Heron life, however, by visiting the
rookery while the foliage is still glistening with dew. Then, from a
distance, a chorus of croaks may be heard from the young birds as they
receive what, in effect, is their supper. Old birds are still returning
from fishing trips, and the froglike monotone of the young is broken by
the sudden _quawks_ of their parents.
The rookery is in a low part of the woods which evidently is flooded
early in the year, a fact which may have influenced the Herons in their
selection of the locality as a nesting site. At the time of our visit
the swamp maples, in which the nests are placed, were densely undergrown
with ferns, and as we approached the whitened vegetation, which clearly
marked the limits of the rookery, a number of Herons with squawks of
alarm left the vicinity of their nests, and soon the rookery was in an
uproar. The common _quawk_ note was often heard, but many of the calls
were distinctly galline in character and conveyed the impression that we
had invaded a henroost.
The trees in which the nests were placed are very tall and slender, mere
poles some of them, with a single nest where the branches fork; while
those more heavily limbed had four, five,^{38} and even six of the
platforms of sticks, which with Herons serve as nests, but in only a
single instance was one nest placed directly below another. A
conservative count yielded a total of five hundred and twenty-five
nests, all within a circle about one hundred yards in diameter, nearly
every suitable tree holding one or more, the lowest being about thirty
feet from the ground, the highest at least eighty feet above it.
While the limy deposits and partially digested fish dropped by the birds
seemed not to affect the growth of the lower vegetation, it had a marked
influence on certain of the swamp maples, the development of the trees
which held a number of nests being so retarded that, although it was
June 13th, they were as yet only in blossom.^{38} The comparative
absence of foliage permitted one to have a far better view of what was
going on above than if the trees had been thickly leaved, and on
entering the rookery our attention was at once attracted by the nearly
grown Herons, who, old enough to leave the nest, had climbed out on the
adjoining limbs. There, silhouetted against the sky, they crouched in
family groups of two, three, and four.^{39}
[Illustration: 38. Five Herons’ nests in swamp maple, at an average
height of seventy feet. The upper right-hand nest with young shown in
Nos. 41 and 42.]
[Illustration: 39. A view in the Heron rookery, looking upward from the
ground to nests and young, about eighty feet above.]
Other broods, inhabitants of more thickly leaved trees, made known their
presence above by disgorging a half-digested eel, which dropped with a
thud at our feet and occasionally nearer, suggesting the advisability of
carrying an umbrella. The vegetation beneath the well-populated trees
was as white as though it had been liberally daubed with whitewash, and
the ground was strewn with blue-green eggshells neatly broken in two
across the middle; fish, principally eels, in various stages of
digestion and decay; and the bodies of young birds who had met with an
untimely death by falling from above. It was not altogether a savory
place!
[Illustration: 40. Black-crowned Night Herons feeding. Telephoto, × 2 at
a distance of about one hundred and fifty feet.]
Seating ourselves at the base of an unoccupied tree, we had not long to
wait before the normal life of the rookery was resumed. The young, who
while we were observed had been silent, now began to utter a singular,
froglike _kik-kik-kik_ in chorus, and the old birds one by one returned.
When food was brought an increased outcry was heard from the expectant
youngsters about to be fed. At intervals a resounding _thump_ announced
the fall of some too eager bird, but, in the cases which we
investigated, the Heron, if fairly well grown, seemed to be little the
worse for his tumble of from fifty to seventy feet, and with lowered
head ran through the undergrowth with surprising quickness. With those
which were younger, however, the mortality had evidently been great,
and, seeing the dozens of dead birds on the ground beneath the nest
trees from which they had fallen, one questioned whether this habit of
nesting high in trees had not, for protective reasons, been recently
acquired by a species the young of which would seem much more at home
nearer the ground.
[Illustration: 41. Young Night Herons in nest. Same as No. 42.]
It was with a delightful sense of companionship with the birds that I
observed them going and coming, feeding their young, or resting after
the night’s labors, wholly undisturbed by my presence. Almost I seemed
to be a guest of the rookery, and I longed for power to interpret the
notes and actions of the birds so abundant about me.
[Illustration: 42. Young Night Herons leaving nest. Nesting tree shown
in No. 38.]
So I should like to have passed the day with them, becoming for the time
being a Heron myself; but the desire to picture the birds was stronger
than the wish to be a Heron, and the situation was considered from the
standpoint of the bird photographer.
The rookery proved to be a difficult subject. No single view would
convey an adequate idea of its appearance, and I therefore selected
representative tree tops and photographed their nests and young birds. A
visit to a neighboring pond resulted in securing, with the aid of a
telephoto, a picture^{40} of two adult birds feeding well out of
gunshot, and with the assistance of climbers I reached the upper
branches of a tree some seventy feet in height containing five nests
whose contents ranged from eggs to nearly grown young. With the
ball-and-socket clamp the camera was fastened to favoring limbs, and
after three hours’ work several satisfactory pictures of young in the
nest and on the adjoining branches were secured.^{41–43} Although well
able to defend themselves, the young assumed no such threatening
attitudes as the American Bittern strikes when alarmed, from which
perhaps we may argue that they are happily ignorant of the dangers which
beset their ground-nesting relative.
[Illustration: 43. Young Night Herons on branches near nest, seventy
feet from the ground.]
As the sun crept upward and the last fishers returned, the calls of both
old and young birds were heard less and less often, and by ten o’clock
night had fallen on the rookery and the birds were all resting quietly.
Four o’clock in the afternoon was evidently early morning, and at this
hour the birds first began to leave the rookery for their fishing
grounds. Some went toward the north, others to the south, east or west;
each bird no doubt having clearly in mind some favorite shore, perhaps a
dozen miles away, where he before had had good luck a-fishing; and of
all the varied phases of rookery life the thought of this regular
nightly expedition of hundreds of winged fishers, is to me the most
attractive.
Our largest Heron as well as our largest bird is the Great Blue. “Crane”
he is popularly called; but, aside from other differences, the bird’s
habit of folding its neck back on its shoulders, when on the wing, will
distinguish it from true Cranes, who fly with neck extended to the
utmost.
The Great Blue Heron is not edible, but its size makes it a desirable
prize to most gunners and it is considered an especially fit mark for a
rifle. The temptation is strong to condemn as an outlaw the man who
kills one of these noble birds for what he terms sport, or perhaps for
the purpose of what he would call having it “set up.” He, however, is
acting according to his light, which is quite as bright as that which
shines for most of his neighbors. The Heron is exceedingly wild, and its
capture is eloquent evidence of the hunter’s prowess, while his desire
to have its stuffed skin adorn his home is, from his point of view,
positively commendable. That the bird is infinitely more valuable alive
than dead, that its presence adds an element to the landscape more
pleasing to some than could be imparted by any work of man, and that in
depriving others of the privilege of observing its singularly stately
grace of pose and motion he is selfish beyond expression, does not even
vaguely occur to this so-called “sportsman,” who belongs in the class to
whom a majestic cliff is a quarry, a noble tree, lumber. Until he has
been educated to properly value the beauties of Nature, or at least
realize the rights of others in them, he must be restrained by law, to
the force of which even he is not blind.
Only the Great Blue Heron’s extreme wariness and habit of frequenting
shores and marshes where it can command an extended view of its
surroundings has preserved it from extinction; but when nesting it is
compelled to visit woodlands where its human enemies have better
opportunities to approach it, and its only chance for safety during the
breeding season is to select a retreat remote from the home of man. For
this reason Great Blue Heron rookeries are exceedingly uncommon in more
settled parts of the bird’s range, and north of Florida I have seen
their nests in only one locality.
It was the week after my visit to the Night Herons that, in northern
Cayuga County, New York, I was led by a local ornithologist through one
of the heaviest pieces of timber I have ever seen north of a primeval
tropical forest, in search of a Great Blue Heron rookery which he knew
to exist, and only my confidence in his woodsmanship gave me courage to
follow him over fallen trees and through the season’s dense undergrowth,
from which our passage raised such a host of mosquitoes that every step
was a battle. If the vicious little insects had lived only to protect
the Herons, they could not have disputed our progress more valiantly,
and on reaching the birds’ stronghold, where the comparative absence of
undergrowth deprived our winged foes of shelter, I congratulated myself
on what, for the moment, seemed to be no insignificant feat.
The eleven nests which my guide had seen on a previous occasion were
found occupying their former positions, at least one hundred feet from
the ground in dead trees, one of which held five of the eleven. During
the many years which the birds have nested in the place their number has
not varied, and one wonders what becomes of the from thirty to forty
young who doubtless each year leave the parental trees. No other Herons
of this species are known to nest in the vicinity, and it is not
probable that the progeny of each year would seek a nesting site in some
far distant rookery; consequently, as an alternative explanation, we can
only suppose that the yearly product of the rookery balances its losses
by death.
The young birds were now nearly half grown, but, unlike the Night
Herons, they did not venture outside their nests, from which they
uttered harsh croaks in evident supplication to their parents for food.
The sight of the trees in which the nests were placed effectually
controlled whatever ambitions I had entertained toward camera studies at
short range, and I contented myself by making telephotos from the
ground, in one of which an adult bird and two nests, each with a young
bird appearing above its edge, may be seen.^{44}
Time was lacking in which to observe these birds, and the value of my
visit to their retreat is not to be expressed in words. The wildness of
their home seemed in perfect accord with their nature, and their
apparent safety from intrusion brought a sense of satisfaction which
colors my memory of the whole experience.
[Illustration: 44. Looking upward from ground to nests and young and
adult bird of Great Blue Heron at a height of over one hundred feet.
Telephoto.]