Heron Rookery

 

 

 What is a rookery? These are Great Blue Herons nesting in a colony, yet it always called a "rookry." Once again the Internet comes up with a answer.  The term rookery originated because of the perceived similarities between a city slum and the nesting habits of the rook, a bird in the crow family. Rooks nest in large, noisy colonies consisting of multiple nests, often untidily crammed into a close group of treetops called a rookery.

  

On March 7, we arranged to meet a friend who is an experienced canoeist, and agreed to take us upstream on Harrad's Creek (the backyard creek of his house). We wanted to see the heron rookery, which we had missed last spring. With trepidation I managed to climb into the canoe without tipping either it or myself into the cold water and we set off. I should be OK until it's time to climb out again.We avoided getting smacked in the face by any branches and finally reached the main course of Harrod's Creek, swollen high by the flooding Ohio River.

At first I saw one or two nests made of branches...

 

...then I glanced to the left and saw many more nests in bare trees over the water. Actually, I didn't really expect the nests to have birds on them this early in the year.  Not  sure if they were sitting on eggs yet, or just getting things ready. David said there were over 80 nests several years ago, but the numbers keep dropping. Perhaps they regret their loss of privacy.

The places where we hiked to bird last spring were all under water, and we didn't see too many species. But we got a fine view of this Red-shouldered Hawk flying off with a mouse for his afternoon snack.