Maine working to save great blue heron colonies
In flight, great blue heron’s wings stretch six feet, tip to tip. Wading through water, the majestic bird stands more than three feet tall. And when it comes to building nests, the heron doesn’t hide away. Like the osprey, it constructs a large stick nest, high in a tree, 100 or more feet off the ground. In other words: “They’re hard to miss when they’re there,” said Danielle D’Auria, wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “But that said, I don’t know if people see them as often as they should.”
More Great Blue Herons! Maine agrees they should work on conditions that help these lovely, leggy, croaking birds. And guess who wants to help them achieve their goals?
It’s believed that the great blue herons living inland have benefited from the recovery of U.S. beaver populations, which have created a patchwork of swamps and meadows ideal for the heron to forage and nest in, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
You see, Great Blues nest in rookeries of dead trees – the kind that are found in in standing water. The kind of trees that die off in a flooded beaver ponds. Even though there are still pockets of “Beavers-eat-trees-so-they-must-be-bad-for-nesting-herons” in the world (And I’m looking at you, OVC Sierra Club) in much of the country people have noticed that “MORE BEAVERS” equals “MORE GREAT BLUES”.
