Hi! I'm Grace Evans and this is Dry Spell, my weekly letter of off-season reflections on canoeing.
Right now I’m listening to a memoir on audio book about birding. The writer’s “spark bird,” the bird that sparked her interest in birding, was the Red-winged Blackbird. I’m not patient enough to be a birder; I don’t want to stand quietly and wait. In fact as much as I enjoy a quiet animal viewing, I have also found that some of my most memorable, soul-baring, and life affirming conversations of the past year have been in a canoe or on a hike. I can be a moderately quiet paddler or hiker, but not a silent one.
But identifying a few birds last summer did spark a casual interest in wildlife watching. In order of their appearance, I was drawn in by the Bank Swallow, Great Egret and Night Heron.
Midsummer I was paddling with my pal Emily one evening when we saw a bird hunched under the cattails. I’d only paddled the marsh in the morning up until this point, so it was a new part of the day to see the water. The surface was calm and reflected the dusky pinks and blues of the setting sky. I took a picture of the bird and later found him or her illustrated in The Sibley Guide to Birds: a “Black-crowned Night Heron.” My partner confirmed my identification, and I got a thrill from the match, like I was part of a scavenger hunt. From then on when I saw a Night Heron in the marsh I noted it. I see you. I almost always saw them sitting in this same way, lurking quietly at the waterline under cattails.
Their name appeals to me. Night Heron sounds pleasantly creepy. When I was a teenager my brother worked at a certain coffee and doughnuts chain. He frequently mention his colleague: Jed the night baker. That he was not just a baker, but a night baker never ceased to intrigue me. Other shifts didn’t get called the day baker, but the night baker was specific, and held a certain amount of mystique. I imagined Jed in the white baker’s uniform, entering the staff entrance in darkness, baking off sheets of frozen doughnuts and bagels throughout the night, only to disappear at dawn. Do Night Herons get the same mystique? Yes. I’ve known and seen Great Blue Herons all over the place for ages. Suddenly a new heron reveals herself, squat, with different habits and perches and a nocturnal schedule.
Apparently Night Herons fish and forage at night because other herons and egrets dominate the space during the day. I’ve only seen them perched on the edge of the marsh, but they hunt for food on land as well. And now that I know more about their habits, I’m sure I missed some perching in trees, concealed by foliage. I plan to watch more closely this year.
Environment and Natural Resources Canada estimates between 10,000-25,000 breeding birds are in the country, and The North American Waterbird Conservation Plan estimates over 50,000 individuals on the continent. That seems like a much smaller number than I would have guessed. They are listed as a species of moderate concern, while other marsh birds I’m familiar with such as Great Egret, Caspian and Common Terns, Great Blue Heron, Double-crested Cormorants, and Ring-billed Gulls are not currently at any risk.
It’s amazing to me how tiny bits of knowledge -
recognizing a few birds, my friend Anna identifying an aquatic plant called Yellow Flag, my brother alerting me to mink scampering along the shoreline, familiarizing myself with the changes in wind and temperature on the water, the waterline rising and falling throughout the season
- add up and suddenly I feel like I know the marsh. I have so much more to learn, and I’m looking forward to watching another season unfold.
Black-crowned Night Heron: A chunky, short-legged Heron; black-backed and whitish below. Young birds are brown with light spots, and resemble Bitterns. Its note quok!, is often heard at night.
How to Know the Birds, 1949.
Links:
Black-crowned night heron: Night herons are probably monogamous, and they “nest colonially, often with a dozen nests in a single tree. Colonies sometimes last for 50 years or more.” [The Cornell Lab of Ornithology]
“Colonies of Black-crowned Night-Herons can provide good indications of overall environmental quality, because night-herons forage at the top of food chain, nest in colonies (where they are fairly easy to study), and have a wide distribution. They tolerate disturbances such as traffic, so they are especially useful in revealing environmental deterioration in urban environments.” [The Cornell Lab of Ornithology]
Black-crowned Night-Heron: “Seen by day, these chunky herons seem dull and lethargic, with groups sitting hunched and motionless in trees near water.” [Audubon]
Black-crowned Night Herons on their nest in Toronto: Very cool pictures of nesting night herons on Leslie Street Spit. “The Spit has the largest colony (1,200 pairs) of Black-crowned Night Herons in Ontario.” [Frame to frame - Bob & Jean]
Thanks for reading Dry Spell!