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Grey Heron

© Fred J. Kane

Next to the mute swan the heron is our largest common bird. The Grey Herons are one of the most familiar local water birds. Fresh or salt water, clear or muddy water is where bird watchers see the birds as long as the waters yield something worth while to eat. The Grey Heron is a large, eminent bird that is generally solitary except when breeding. Birders easily distinguished the Grey Heron from other species by its dark crown and yellow beak and eyes.

The Grey Heron stands about 36 inches tall as an adult and in flight has a wing span of about 60 inches. Its feathers are blue/ grey, black and white. Both sexes have a black crest, brown feet and legs. Herons are good looking birds to watch while flying. In flight you see them flying with their yellow legs stretched out behind them and their neck tucked close to their body.

The princely Grey Heron is a pleasure to watch when he's hunting for his next meal. The Grey Heron dines mainly on fish, amphibians, small animals like mice, rats, bugs, and small reptiles. Sometimes they will eat crustaceans, mollusks, worms and small helpless birds. To aid in making waste pellets they may eat some plant material.

The bird doesn't always wait for quarry but stalks through the shallow water with long deliberate strides, neck muscles tensed and with lightening speed spears the fish with its pointed, dagger like beak. You have to be ready to observe a Grey Heron catching its food.

Normally the bill of the Grey Heron are yellow and changes in color to deep orange when a flock congregates on the courtship areas. When the male and female pair up for mating and breeding they perform a subdued bill snapping movement toward each other. Also they make these gestures when at the nest. While at the courting area they run and hop in one direction and then another with their wings wide open.

In early February in a mild season, bird watchers often see them soaring over the nesting platform chasing one another, tilting from side to side and diving head first into thin air. Continuous displays occur on old nest platforms and consist of complicated neck movements with crest and neck feathers erect and bill snapping. Also the birds use a variety of loud, noisy calls.

The Grey Herons nest in colonies called heronries. They construct big platform like nests made of branches and small limbs in trees near rivers and lakes. Herons' nests in use have many droppings on the ground below them. The pellets are the parts of the bird's food it doesn't digest. Unless weather or other means destroys the nest the Grey Herons use the same nest each spring. The old nest may be about 36 inches wide in alders or Scots pine and tree sparrows may use the nest at the same time. The young herons breed for first time at their second or third year.