Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
The Great Blue Heron is a majestic bird that you may have noticed in shallow waters, standing as still as a statue, stealthily searching for food. The Great Blue Heron is the largest and most widely distributed heron in Canada. It holds the record for the largest wading bird in North America.
HOW TO IDENTIFY
Identify in Flight
To identify a Great Blue Heron in flight watch for these key features:
- long neck tucked tightly in an S-shape
- rounded wings flap in slow, deep beats
- legs trail behind, long past their tail
- wing span is 182 cm (6 feet)
Identify by Sound
Great Blue Herons have a number of different calls to communicate with each other. Their calls range from honks, which are like a high-pitched funny-sounding goose, to croaks, which sound like an unimaginable ferocious dinosaur. Young herons begging for food sound like a ticking clock that will persist until their hungry mouths are satisfied.
WHERE TO FIND
Great Blue Herons are found in every Natural Region in the province, but are less common in the northern parts of Alberta. Herons can be found in meadows or in open shallow water at the edges of lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, sloughs, ditches, marshes, and mudflats. Look in these areas for a tall slender figure - herons stay statue still for great lengths of time while searching for food, making them difficult to spot.
Great Blue Herons are migratory birds. Herons arrive in Alberta in late March to early April and fly south in October to early November. A few Great Blue Herons have been spotted overwintering in the Calgary area, near Medicine Hat and Lethbridge, although the majority overwinter in southern USA, Mexico, or even as far south as the Caribbean.
SOCIAL LIFE
Great Blue Herons are lone hunters but will flock on large feeding grounds. Their very slow wingbeats, tucked-in neck and trailing legs create an unmistakable image in flight.
Breeding birds nest in colonies that can number several hundred pairs, where they build stick nests in trees, on bushes, or on the ground. If you visit a colony, look for elaborate courtship and pair-bonding displays that include a ritualized greeting, stick transfers, and nest relief ceremony in which the birds erect their plumes and “clapper” their bill tips. Pairs are mostly monogamous during a season, but they choose new partners each year. Away from the colony, Great Blue Herons defend feeding territories from other herons with dramatic displays in which the birds approach intruders with their head thrown back, wings outstretched, and bill pointing skyward. Gulls and even humans may also be a target of this defensive maneuver.
NEST PLACEMENT
Great Blue Herons nest mainly in trees, but will also nest on the ground, on bushes, in mangroves, and on structures such as duck blinds, channel markers, or artificial nest platforms. Males arrive at the colony and settle on nest sites; from there, they court passing females. Colonies can consist of 500 or more individual nests, with multiple nests per tree built 100 or more feet off the ground.
Nest Description
Male Great Blue Herons collect much of the nest material, gathering sticks from the ground and nearby shrubs and trees, and from unguarded and abandoned nests, and presenting them to the female. She weaves a platform and a saucer-shaped nest cup, lining it with pine needles, moss, reeds, dry grass, mangrove leaves, or small twigs. Nest building can take from 3 days up to 2 weeks; the finished nest can range from a simple platform measuring 20 inches across to more elaborate structures used over multiple years, reaching 4 feet across and nearly 3.5 feet deep. Ground-nesting herons use vegetation such as salt grass to form the nest.
FOOD CHAIN
Hunting Great Blue Herons wade slowly or stand statue-like, stalking fish and other prey in shallow water or open fields. Watch for the lightning-fast thrust of the neck and head as they stab with their strong bills. Great Blue Herons eat nearly anything within striking distance, including fish, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, insects, and other birds. They grab smaller prey in their strong mandibles or use their dagger-like bills to impale larger fish, often shaking them to break or relax the sharp spines before gulping them down.
Food: fish, frogs, salamanders, water snakes, large insects, mice, small birds or even plant seeds.
Predators: eagles, bears, raccoons, vultures, and hawks prey on the young birds and sometimes even the adults.
FUN FACTS
The oldest known Great Blue Heron was 24 years old.
Great Blue Herons benefit from beaver engineering skills. Beavers stop the flow of water by building a dam which creates a pond. This can eventually lead to the creation of a meadow. These ponds and meadows are prime feeding grounds for Great Blue Herons.
There is a Great White Heron, an all-white subspecies of the Great Blue Heron. The Great White Heron is found only in coastal areas of southern Florida.
How you can help
- Our Pipestone Creek and Glory Hills properties are adjacent to Great Blue Heron colonies. Our lands conserve important heron feeding grounds such as a creek, ox bow lake, lake, and small wetland.
- Do not disturb a rookery. Great Blue Herons return to the same nest sites year after year, so it is very important that heron nests are not disturbed.
- Help keep your watershed healthy! We all live in a watershed and what we do in our very own yards has an impact on wetlands and waterways nearby.
- Wash your car at a carwash or use biodegradable soap. Many people do not realize that our storm water systems (catch basins and gutters along paved streets) redirect UNTREATED water to the river or a nearby wetland.
- Follow directions precisely when applying fertilizers or pesticides to your lawn. Make sure the weather forecast is not calling for rain when you apply chemicals as they will just get washed away, wasting your money and polluting the Great Blue Herons feeding grounds.
- If you have a backyard fish pond don’t be surprised if a Great Blue Heron shows up for breakfast.
- To deter Great Blue Herons from eating your expensive pond fish, install a decoy heron (which makes for a beautiful yard decoration) next to your pond. Although herons flock on large feeding grounds, they will not share a small pond.
- Providing hiding places for your fish or covering the pond with netting will also protect your fish from being eaten.