Wildlife of the James

Great Blue Heron
Ardea herodias

Go anywhere on the James River and you stand a fair chance of spotting a great blue heron. Indeed, the heron’s commonness might beget boredom were it not for the bird’s fascinating habits and unusual grace.  Awaiting its next minnow-meal, the great blue heron embodies stillness and patience. The same bird, however, can scare you well enough to flip your kayak when it leaps into flight with its characteristic ear-splitting squawk right next to you.

Late winter is an exciting time for herons and heron watchers, for it is now that heron begin the work of creating the future of their species. The heron stands over four feet tall with a six foot wingspan, so it needs a large nest for its young. The nest is finished by both parents in anticipation of 3-5 eggs that will hatch after four weeks of incubation.

 This large construction project, the courtship rituals, and the efforts of the parent pair to feed their brood would be a spectacular sight if you were viewing only one family. But herons often raise their young in rookeries, building nests together in groups of several dozen or more. Though herons don’t live in flocks the rest of the year, they come together to raise young for better protection from predators like raccoons. This concentration of large birds is quite astounding; large trees supporting the rookeries are often killed by the sheer bulk and acidity of the droppings from the rapidly growing chicks.

Writer Micheal McIntosh sets the scene, joking that a heron rookery is “a place to test any birdwatcher’s mettle…For one thing,  it’s almost sure to be located atop some dense, airless, humid riverine jungle. The fetid stink of mud, decaying vegetation, and pools of stagnant water is bad enough, but then there’s eau de heron itself. Since the adults eat fish, they feed the kids fish as well, which they regurgitate and extrude through their bills for the young to gobble up. Not all of this stuff gets down those hungry little maws, but what does eventually ends up on the ground or splattered on the trees. Add in a substantial contribution from the adults, who can void excrement in quantities to impress a Guernsey bull, and the atmosphere is enough to bring tears to the eyes of a skunk (Wild Things, p. 379).”

The James River in Richmond offers a unique way to view a heron rookery without quite immersing yourself in it. Looking across a river channel from the Pipeline walk of the James River Park System, you can see what recently has become a very large rookery. In the next couple months, it will be well worth a visit.

Despite the ruckus and pomp of the rookery, the great blue heron comes first to my mind as the solitary hunter standing motionless on some deserted reach of river, undisturbed by my passage. On long trips down the James, I have noted the gray forms like mile markers ticking off the distance between the mountains and the Bay. If I am lonely for company, I will not be for long, for there is always a heron waiting around the next bend. The heron’s ability to inspire awe and call poetry from the heaviest of hearts, as well as its prevalent distribution, perhaps make this bird the true guardian of the James. If enough young people are given a chance to appreciate the great blue heron, the river will be in much better hands in years to come.

by Gabe Silver
JRA Environmental Educator

For more on the heron rookery in Richmond see a Richmond Times-Dispatch article here >>.

For a poem by Mary Oliver inspired by the great blue heron see this page >>.

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