Great Blue Heron is like a ghost in the mist

By Jack Elliott
Correspondent

It stands near the shoreline in the morning mist like a ghost- unmoving, barely visible. Suddenly it’s coiled neck unbends in a lightning strike, plucking it’s breakfast from the shallow waters. It flips the small fish up and down its gullet it goes head first.
You move, and with a squawk, the ungainly ghost spreads its seven-foot wings and impossibly flaps its way into the air out across the lake. It is a Great Blue Heron.
If you are both unlucky, it may jump into the air directly over you, disgorging its recently caught victims, and further lightening its load with a power exhaust. This particular behaviour is an enhanced escape mechanism many birds have evolved, but one that makes it particularly difficult to successfully raise this nervous species in captivity. It may throw up too much adequately nourish itself.
The Great Blue Heron can be found over most of North America, wherever there are wetlands, obtaining most of its food from the water, but also feeding on insects and occasional small birds.
Great Blue, Ardea herodias, and other herons tend to nest in colonies or heronries. Great care must be taken to not disturb these nesting areas.
Any disturbance of the heronries, particularly early in the pairing and egg laying season, may cause some or all of the nests to be abandoned says John Vandenbroeck, Area Biologist with the Ministry of Natural Resources in Fort Frances.
Vandenbroeck added there are only a few active heronries in the Rainy River District and requests people please avoid them and help avoid any abandonment tragedies.
Disturbance later in the season, may scare the young in the nest to leave their refuge and then they will be subject to attack by predators or other herons whose territory they have invaded. Additionally young heron that leave their nests are very unlikely to be fed by their parents.
Heronries tend to be located in isolated areas, near beaver ponds, on islands, or surrounded by heavy vegetation. A minimum 300 metre buffer zone should be observed around a colony during the breeding season, and all heavy development prohibited within a one kilometer radius, state Ministry guidelines.
Besides being isolated, heronries are not very pleasant places to be. Fish fueled, bird poop tends to be a little odiferous.
So be content to view this magnificent creature from a distance with a pair or binoculars or a telephoto lens. You too can enjoy this ‘ghost in the mist.’