Friday, August 2, 2013

Fledgling Birds - 07/07/13 - Written by Mike LaDue




While in the garden pulling weeds or harvesting leafy greens, I have noticed a plethora of young birds. Robins, grackles, starlings, morning doves and the local nest of Merlin’s have fledged. It is enjoyable to watch the smaller bird’s line up around our feeder and wait for seed. You would think that once the young fledge, they could fend for themselves (more) efficiently. No, the caretaking is far from over for the adult birds. The parents are still responsible for feeding the young, as well as for their safety.
Growing birds are far more vocal than the average child. They squawk and complain even while the seeds are being beaked right into their mouths. It takes days for the pea brained complainers to realize that they are capable of doing the same thing on their own. Even though they do have a small brain, I’ll give them credit for knowing when it is time to leave home. Finding out that they can fly must be a liberating experience. They need no training, no learners permit or a class to show them how. It is a leap of faith reinforced by parents coaxing or the witnessing of fellow siblings making the plunge. If a human child had the same chance I wonder if they would ever be seen again.
There are two predators that the young flyers have to be aware of in the neighborhood. The first is, as in many other neighborhoods, the outside cat. The second less common predator is the Merlin (falcons) that are now feeding their fledged young. The Merlin’s have been lively with chatter all spring, but now that the young are flying the, noise is twofold. My bride watched one of the young ones yesterday take a meal from the sky and light onto a bare branch. A second young Merlin decided that sharing the meal would be a great idea. It came to join its sibling and was promptly admonished and chased away. Sharing was probably fine while they cohabitated in the nest and food came along all by itself. That falcon learned the rewards of its labor and was not going to share those efforts with one who does not even try. Humans may see that as a cruel rule, but it is one that makes being self-sufficient mandatory.
Friends from the river invited my bride and me to take a hike around the island where they spend weekends. We walked the trails and enjoyed watching songbirds and ripening wild raspberries. There was a relieving shade under the tall oaks standing in woods, and some of those (trees) are well over a hundred years old. It was like walking in the wilderness that once surrounded this river. How refreshing to hear nothing but nature and seeing the lack of man’s interference with it. We were in for an unexpected treat when they told us that a rookery of blue herons occupy a section of those woods.


Jane said; “Shall we take them to see the rookery of herons?” That statement stopped me in my tracks; “I have not been close to a heron rookery since I was ten years old. My Pap and I used to fish around Iron side Island and that was as close as I ever got to them. I’d like nothing more than to get under their nests and listen to them.” Jane’s husband Mike was leading our walk and said; “It is like going to some prehistoric place. You won’t believe the racket that they make. When we first came here and listened to them during the night we had no idea what they were.” He led us over hills and through the woods to a slight valley.
I could smell them long before I saw or heard them. The air over the island carried the aroma and I was reminded of my days cleaning out chicken coops. Mike was correct, the herons screeching and squawking was eerie. The mature birds flew in with fish to feed the young and as they approached the immature herons cried for attention. The long gangly adult birds put on the brakes, to land on foliage covered branches. Swooping sounds of faltering wing beats added to the ever present chatter. The returning herons cast shadows over the tree tops, before stretching out two long legs to grasp a solid perch. Whitewashed chalky scat covered the ground below each nest. We were there… under the rookery.
Three deer slipped through the woods as my bride and I took gingerly footsteps around the scat. We craned our heads to the sky to see several nests high above the ground. Immature herons stood on piles of sticks sewn together by the long bills of their parents. Others ventured out beyond the nest to stand and stare into the air, like forlorn children waiting for a school bus. It was difficult to photograph, the birds blended into the sky and foliage almost becoming transparent. I managed to focus on a tree where two adults pandered to the hunger of an off spring. At no time could I get all of them completely into the shot but it was close.
When a heron stands in just the right direction it looks like a piece of vertical plywood standing on its side, with two eyeballs attached. That’s what makes them efficient at catching fish, lack of movement and an invisible forward profile. The young in the trees already had that down; they were hard to pick out (if they were not moving). Last week my bride just happened to see a heron fly past with a chipmunk hanging from its bill. I have seen herons in ponds snatching frogs and in ditches taking pollywogs. If they are able to spear a chipmunk you know just how fast they can strike!
 One of the trees had a number of horizontal branches and it held six different nests. You can imagine what the earth looked like under that tree! I have no estimate on how many heron were in that pungent lively rookery. We backed out and left the area to the community of original residents, who for centuries never saw a human.

A hundred years has changed this river in many ways. I have only known her for the last fifty. Of all of my experiences in nature along her shores, this was the first time that I traversed what was once called a wilderness. I found that it is not only a sanctuary for herons; it was also a sanctuary for my spirit. I thank our friends for sharing this secluded seductive section of the river. It thrives in a different time, but in the same place as a resilient reminder to the rivers importance. We are not the only species and far from the only beneficiaries of her unique ecosystem.