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.
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