Identifier: birdlore101908nati (find matches)
Title: Bird lore
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: National Committee of the Audubon Societies of America National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals National Audubon Society
Subjects: Birds Birds Ornithology
Publisher: New York City : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ep, andthe bottom was not firm, and all the time we were half expecting to see an alli-gator rise to the surface. We reached the rookery in safety, however, and foundwhat more than repaid us for our trouble. Here, in a dense thicket of shrubs of the Heath Family (Leucothoe race-mosa), less than a half-acre in extent, we found two or three hundred nests ofthe Little Blue Heron. The bushes were standing in water about two feet deep,and the nests were in the bushes about three or four feet above the water. Thenests were built of twigs, being little more than mere platforms of sticks. They (163) 164 Bird- Lore were very close together, being only a few feet apart. In the nests were foundboth eggs and young. The eggs were blue, and four was the prevailing numberin each nest. A very few sets of five were noticed. May 2 seemed to be the veryheight of the hatching period. Probably a third of the eggs were hatched, andnone of the young were more than a few days old on this date. The young have
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YOUXG LITTLE BLUE HERONS considerable white down on them when hatched. After examining the rookeryto our satisfaction, we made a few kodak pictures of the nests and their contents.During our little stay, the young kept up an almost continuous noise whichreminded one of the squawks of the old birds, although not nearly so loud. Onour approach the parent birds had taken flight and had retreated to the cypresstrees in the edge of the lake. A few, however, kept flying over the rookery utter-ing their alarm notes. A few white (immature) Herons were among the adults,and a few that were changing from the immature plumage to that of the adult. A Little Blue Heron Rookery 165 Almost as soon as we left the place, the old birds returned and settled downas though nothing had occurred. On May 9 we again visited the rookery and found nearlv all of the eggshatched, and many of the young large enough to climb up the bushes, and thisthey do by the use of their bills as well as their feet. Another visi

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