Sapsucker Blues: The Story of an Endearing Family of Great Blue Herons

Its back is greyish blue, and its breast is white streaked with black. Breeding herons have long plumes on their breasts, flanks, and backs. The sexes look much alike, but the males are usually bigger than the females. From birth to two years, Great Blue Herons moult, or replace old feathers with new, four times. During the first year, juveniles have grey crowns and grey wings flecked with brown, and they lack plumes. Adult Great Blue Herons show brighter colours during the breeding season, moult some plumes in summer, and change to duller colours in winter.

At a Glance

Great Blue Herons live long lives, some as long as 17 years. Signs and sounds The Great Blue Heron is generally silent, but it does have a repertoire of noises. It gives a frawnk sound at breeding colonies when alarmed, a gooo call at the end of one of its courtship displays, an occasional ee call when flying, and sometimes a series of clucks when foraging. The heron also utters a roh-roh-roh sound when it approaches the nest, perhaps to alert its mate to its arrival.

Females snap bills when they are approaching unmated males and after they have formed a breeding pair. Great Blue Herons forage in marine coastal environments and in freshwater habitats, but nest on islands or in wooded swamps, where few mammals or snakes can prey on them. The birds sometimes nest alone, but often do so in colonies consisting of a dozen to several hundred pairs. Scientists do not know precisely how herons choose whether to be sociable. It seems that advantages to colonial behaviour include better defense of nests and greater chance of discovering mobile schools of fish: Unique characteristics The Great Blue Heron has an array of displays.

Some of them are seen on the foraging grounds, as, for example, when two herons approach each other, each extending its neck fully and tilting its head over its back, with the wings partly opened and the body plumes erect. Another set of displays occurs when a mate returns to the nest. The arriving bird often greets the mate using a particular call, and the bird on the nest responds with one of a number of displays. Sometimes, the male brings sticks to the female on the nest. Distribution of the Great Blue Heron. The Great Blue Heron has the widest distribution in Canada of all herons: While it breeds in all provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador, this bird spends the winter in Canada only on the British Columbia coast and in parts of the Maritime provinces.

Most birds move south for the winter, and banded birds from Canada have been found in Mexico, Honduras, and Cuba. Great Blue Herons migrate alone or in groups of three to 12 and sometimes up to They travel day and night.

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Spring migrants return to most Canadian locations in April. Some fly north in summer to arctic Alaska, southern Yukon, and northern Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. They migrate south from mid-September to late October. The Great Blue Heron feeds mostly in calm freshwater and along seacoasts. Occasionally, it finds its food in surf and in fields. Its main food is small fish less than half the length of its bill, or under 65 mm long. On occasion, it also eats shellfish, insects, rodents, amphibians mostly frogs , reptiles, and small birds.

The Great Blue Heron has two principal fishing techniques. Only the head and eyes move to locate the prey. If no fish comes within range after a few minutes, the heron gradually moves a short distance away and takes up a similar position. When a potential meal comes close enough, the heron slowly folds its neck back and moves one leg in the direction of the prey.

Suddenly, its entire body unbends, its head plunges into the water, it catches the prey in its bill, and it swallows it outside the water, using a deft movement of the head to drop the prey headfirst into its gullet. The heron then stops and slowly stretches its neck. When the prey is within range, the bird uncoils its body and thrusts its head into the water in pursuit. When it has eaten the catch, the heron resumes its walk. Should the bird fail to find sufficient fish in an area, it flies a short distance away and resumes fishing.

When captured prey is too large to be gulped down immediately or has dangerous spines, the heron drops the prey back into the water and grabs hold of it repeatedly and violently with its beak until the catch is dazed or the spines snap. Then it can be swallowed more easily. Sometimes two fish are caught simultaneously. Other techniques are observed, but more rarely: USFWS In the spring, males and females reach the nesting grounds at about the same time, as soon as local water courses have thawed, in late February in western Canada and late March in eastern Canada.

Males choose the nesting spot, usually settling where there are nests from former years. Each male then defends his territory in the tree where he plans to build a new nest or restore an old one. From that site, males put on grand displays and shriek loudly when females approach them. The birds first mate at two years of age, and they choose new mates each year.

They mate almost immediately upon arrival. The building of the nest soon follows. The male gathers nest-building materials around the nest site, from live or dead trees, from neighbouring nests, or along the ground, and the female works them into the nest. Recently built nests look like delicate platforms of interlaced dry branches, and older nests are bulky structures of different sizes.

The herons sometimes line this internal cavity with twigs, moss, lichens, or conifer needles.

Sapsucker Blues

Ordinarily, a pair takes less than a week to build a nest solid enough for eggs to be laid and incubated. Twigs are added mostly before the eggs are laid, but also when they hatch. In Canada, most herons lay from three to five eggs in April. Incubation, or warming of the eggs, starts with the laying of the first or second egg and lasts about 28 days. It is shared by both partners: Eggs usually hatch during the time when food is most abundant in the area. The parents immediately begin to feed their young, and keep them warm, or brood them, continually for the first week.

The adults brood less after that, but for the next week or two, one adult remains at the nest almost without break: By about the third or fourth week, both parents begin to leave the chicks unguarded to search for food in the neighbourhood. After the first month, the pair spends most of its time outside the colony, returning only to feed the young and stand watch for short periods.

Feeding is a raucous affair. An adult arriving at the heronry usually gives a dull guttural cry. The adult rarely flies straight to them, perching instead a few metres from the nest. After about five minutes, the adult goes to the nest and regurgitates predigested food. If the food supply is not sufficient to satisfy the growing appetites of all the nestlings, only the strongest will survive. Puny members of the brood weaken progressively and often end up falling from the nest, pushed aside by others eager for space to stretch their wings.

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On the ground, they are doomed to starve, because the parents will not feed young outside the nest. Young herons develop rapidly. At two weeks, between periods of sleep, they may clean their plumage, stand upright with their wings half-opened, or vibrate their elastic throat membranes in order to cool themselves. They walk along the branches surrounding the nest, jump while beating their wings, or grasp a branch with their claws and try to raise it with the power of their wing beats.

At eight weeks of age, the young fly clumsily from one tree to another, but always return to the nest to be fed. Often a young bird will go to the wrong nest, which leads to fighting between the occupants and the intruder. The intruder is likely to be more developed than the others and thus manages to stay in the nest, sometimes after pushing one of its inhabitants to the ground. In such cases, the intruder is eventually chased off by a returning adult.

At about 10 weeks the young herons leave their nest for good and are independent of their parents. From one to four chicks are raised, with two or three being most common. Adult Great Blue Herons have few natural enemies. Eagles occasionally attack them, and crows, ravens, gulls, birds of prey, and raccoons prey upon the eggs and young; mortality of the young is high, but often for reasons other than predation. Heavy rains and cold weather at the time of hatching take a substantial toll.

Also, when food is scarce, the weakest young birds often do without and waste away. Pesticides are suspected of causing reproductive failures and deaths, although data obtained up to this time suggest that toxic chemicals have not caused any decline in overall population levels. In the past, hunting caused many heron deaths.

Today, a frequent reason for nesting failures is disturbance by eagles and humans; herons are particularly sensitive to disturbance while nesting. The number of herons breeding in an area is directly related to the amount of feeding habitat available to them. Overall, the Great Blue Heron population is healthy.

Scientists estimate that there are tens of thousands of Great Blue Herons in Canada. Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias. In The Birds of North America, no. The Great Blue Heron. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver. This book can be found at UBC Press. All proceeds go to heron conservation. The birds of Canada. National Museums of Canada, Ottawa. Harper and Row, New York. Handbook of North American birds. Butler, , Editing: The Common Raven Corvus corax is one of the heaviest passerine birds and the largest of all the songbirds.

It is easily recognizable because of its size between 54 and 67 centimetres long, with a wingspan of to cm, and weighing between 0. It has a ruff of feathers on the throat, which are called 'hackles', and a wide, robust bill. When in flight, it has a wedge-shaped tail, with longer feathers in the middle. While females may be a bit smaller, both sexes are very similar. The size of an adult raven may also vary according to its habitat, as subspecies from colder areas are often larger.

A raven may live up to 21 years in the wild, making it one of the species with the longest lifespan in all passerine birds. Both birds are from the same genus order of passerine birds, corvid family —like jays, magpies and nutcrackers, Corvus genus and have a similar colouring. But the American Crow is smaller with a wingspan of about 75 cm and has a fan-shaped tail when in flight with no longer feathers.

Their cries are different: While adult ravens tend to live alone or in pairs, crows are more often observed in larger groups. The Atlantic Cod Gadus morhua is a medium to large saltwater fish: Individuals living closer to shore tend to be smaller than their offshore relatives, but male and female cod are not different in size, wherever they live. The Atlantic Cod shares some of its physical features with the two other species of its genus, or group of species, named Gadus.

The Pacific Cod and Alaska Pollock also have three rounded dorsal fins and two anal fins. They also have small pelvic fins right under their gills, and barbels or whiskers on their chins. Both Pacific and Atlantic Cod have a white line on each side of their bodies from the gills to their tails, or pectoral fins.

This line is actually a sensory organ that helps fish detect vibrations in the water. This print, stamped with the seal of the Estate of Charley Harper, shows a majestic red male cardinal consorting with his lover, a brown female cardinal. This equation applies if the two potential lovebirds hang out together and decide they're truly meant for each other. From that stage, consorting moves quickly to conjoining. Now, the mates share song phrases and romantic dinners.

She looks for desirable nest locations while He tags along. From the art of Charley Harper, issued in Paper Size: It's instant apoplexy, and understandably so. Americans buy half a million tons of sunflower seeds annually to fill their feeders, and spend the winter trying not to fill the birds with the bushy tails. Every time you outwit them, they retaliate with another creative He had just eluded a fox that had trailed him through a meadow when he spotted it, hovering over the old maple at the edge of the clearing. It was roundish and squarish and oblongish and reddish and brownish and grayish and, WOW, it moved with incredible speed as he raced the shadow of the Part of a limited edition of prints, released in Or when you're ready to pop the question: And on your anniversary: You're still as owlluring as ever.

Then there's Cowlumbus Day and Owlection A turkey buzzard's best buddies are other buzzards, and when they give him the short end of the stick, he's left with nothing but his legacy—living off life's leftovers. Granted that he pioneered recycling and daily returns protein to the food chain, would From the art of Charley Harper, issued in , signed and numbered Paper Size: Nope, just a jaw full of sunflower seeds.

The chipmunk is like anybody with a garden - you eat what you can and what you can't eat, you can. From summer's cornucopia he collects compulsively, storing goodies wall-to-wall in his bedroom just below the frost line. Then he sacks out in the snacks, eating his bed for breakfast. In the struggle to survive, all armaments are employed, so what is the ultimate weapon? Maybe, but it's mini, not maxi, that matters. Who has bugged you more lately: Ask the vanishing whale if Up with the downtrodden, out with the intimidators.

Don't be pushed around by the biggies, the bullies, the braggarts. Muster some bluster, toot your own trumpet, put some steam in your self-esteem. Assert yourself - don't desert yourself. Learn a lesson from the larva of the royal walnut moth: Forget the hawk, the owl, the eagle. This flyweight will zing anything on the wing, even an airplane, that violates his airspace. Straight up or down, sideways and backward he zips, hovering for frequent refueling on high-octane nectar.

Part of a limited edition of prints, first released in Paper Size: But when it's raining cats and dogs you duck under the nearest shelter, which might be mom. Or, in your matriarchal society, it might be any of a herd of sisters, aunts, or grandmothers, all reliable baby-standers. But before we go any further with this idea, the question must be asked A quiver of quills quickly quells invasion of privacy and insures tranquility.

But when misanthropy gives way to philanthropy, when your gregarious impulse quashes It works on a proximity fuse with a mighty short countdown as they sack out in a covey-dovey of sentries—tails together, heads out, all systems GO. One step too close and it's cardiac arrest as the bob-white bomb explodes in a nerve-shattering whirring-blurring of wings, rocketing into orbits A pair of robins makes the front page by nesting somewhere you'd never believe.

OK, so we live in a mobile society, say the sociologists, but a mobile home for birds? You'd expect a barnswallow to populate your barn, and jenny to wrenovate your clothespin bag, but who'd be bird-brained enough to confiscate a Lay a patch and pounce. Chasing mama's tail is fun and games. These cheetah cubs are in basic training for The Big One, when they'll be on their own, winning is the only thing that counts and losers go hungry.

Now take a lesson from mama, the fastest mammal on earth, as she stalks and crouches, lays a patch and pounces. Ten in a den? A den of ten, all spittin' images, chips off the ol' fox. Hear the din in the den at dindin, the sibling quibbling of the disputatious duplicates, the irascible replicas. This was a nice, quiet neighborhood before that dingaling ruffed grouse moved in. Spring's in full swing, and Mr.

Ruffed and ready for love or war, If you wake up some morning and find a plastic flamingo on your lawn, you've been flamingoed. If they wake up and find plastic on their property, Like all of his ghostly clan, the barn owl prowls the darkness, tending to the balance of nature as his hoots and screams conjure up witches and demons. Is the hex sign protection from them? The Pennsylvania Dutch will tell you it's only a Hopeful of acceptance, dreading rejection, we offer our love on a leash, loathe to go out on a limb and say, "Be my valentine.

C Charley Harper Paper Size: And they're easy pickin' in the dark when he can see and they can't. But sunrise turns the tables, and any sighting of the flying tiger sets off the owlarm that summons a crowliferating posse to pester him. The air is clogged with crowfanities as the raucous ruckus moves from oak to maple to From a polar bear's perspective, icebergs are supposed to float always upon the ocean, stable islands of reprieve since the rise of the mammal's collective hard-wired memory.

But, with the intensification of the Industrial Revolution, global warming promises to compress ecozones and pair some previously unlikely partners. The Northern Cardinal was never intended to become this northern - however, on a planet beset by our role in accelerating climate change, strange new norms will appear You know who can? A Water Strider, that's who. A Water Strider can walk around on the creek all day without getting its feet wet. Its shadow sinks like a stone and tags along on the bottom, but who minds a wet shadow? If you had widespread, waxy feet that Early spring is the time to tap the sugar maple, collect the clear, sweet sap, and boil it down to the maple sugar so dear to every sweet tooth.

A sweet tooth in the wild finds precious little satisfaction. Sometimes it must be sought Folks are fond of armadillos, but everybody is anti-ant. They enjoy a fiery antypasto before such armadeli entrees as tarantulas, roaches and worms. Armadillos can cross a river by holding their breath and walking on the bottom, but few ever make it across an expressway. Armadillo offspring are always Hoots and wails, tremolos and yodels - it's hard to get a Handel on their Water Music, but it will make your spine tingle with its evocation of the awesome mystery of the Providing protein for predatory species while perpetuating one's own presupposes a prodigality of procreation that has procured for the cottontail a reputation for a perpetually proliferating population.

Cheerily, cheerily, cheerily, he sings cheerily. With all the fuss and feathers, he wins his match and Warm and cuddly in your immaculate pelt, you lie helpless and defenseless on the arctic ice; you cannot swim, you can scarcely crawl. And you are so trusting. We think you are beautiful. We hear your cries of pain and terror under the hunter's club. Comes with dust cover and hanging hardware. Shipped with protective packaging and insured for full Stag beetles have the rich finish of fine, old woodwork and the nightmarish mandibles of man-eating monsters.

They also have all the athletic grace of bulldozers, which is why they spend a lot of time flat on their backs, treading air, totally helpless. Is this wrestling match a fake? Let that burger aroma roam around the neighborhood and you're inviting a Big Rac Attack. And can you blame them? Raccoons eat out all the time and - well, wouldn't you welcome a nice home-cooked meal now and then? But did you buy enough burger to feed this raccpack? What happens when you're down to the last patty?

Watch for him on those warm summer nights when the kernel swells the husk and the gardener dreams of feasts forthcoming from his backyard cornucopia - the masked marauder munching by moon-light, raccoon on the cob. Come morning, hear the Part of a limited edition of prints, first issued in He's the droll one who lives in a hole in the ground and spends most of the day standing on his stoop, bowing ceremoniously to passers-by. Is the Io pronounced eye-o moth a trick or a treat? Don't panic if this clown shows up on your stoop on Halloween when Tiny neon gobies make a good living as dental and dermatological technicians for residents of the reef, venturing fearlessly into fang-filled caverns to dine on ectoparasites that thrive on their clients' teeth, gills and scales.

In the barracuda's mouth! Is that goby psychotic? He offers her a sunflower seed while she's standing in them and she accepts. As February Marches into April, the courtship quickens, and by the time the redbud's in bloom, love is too. She weaves some leaves and twigs together, and just in time. As summer falls into winter, As the tide falls and the moon rises, a squadron of skimmers shimmers over the glassy cove, shallow-plowing the shallows with their razor-thin lower mandibles, scooping up minnows by the many from the mini furrows.

It's a little like seeing with a string, and you have to wonder if they When October turns suddenly soggy, no problem. He never leaves home without his umbrella, which is also his sunshade, his banner, his parachute, his rudder and his stabilizer for death-defying aerial acts.

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If he forgets where he puts The ol' punster has terned make that "turned" over a new leaf. I promise not to punctuate this paragraph with such punishments as no stone unterned, no U-terns - no more awful puns. Shipped with protective packaging and insured for full value. Please contact us for custom framing options upgrade The Bengal tiger likes it and you would too if you had to wear a fur coat in the steamy jungle.

But when your coat is a status symbol, many would help you off with it. One maharajah helped tigers off with their coats. Others, to remain competitive, included cubs and fetuses in their tallies. In this century, hunting and habitat He's that character we all have a gnawing feeling we ought to keep as busy as. And indeed some of us have kept so busy that we've taken away his job of impeding and impounding the free-flowing waters of America.

But when it comes to cost-benefit ratios and environmental impact statements, he's better than the Corps of Please contact us for custom Please go to "Cheeky Chippy - Framed" to order. This limited-edition collector's print is framed with single, double, or triple matting as pictured , adhesive-free archival mounting, Conservation Clear glass, and modern frame. Click on image to Zoom. Please enter valid pincode to check Delivery available unavailable in your area. Hard Bound Publishing Date: Archway Number of Pages: Submit Review Submit Review.

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