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Daily Bucket:Friday Sequence, a Rookery but not of Rooks [1]

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Date: 2023-05-05

What are all of those clumps in the trees?

Most everyone has seen the bird I am presenting in this Sequence Bucket. They are big, plentiful, not too shy, stay still for long periods of time, fly slowly so are easy to watch and have a large variety of prey that they swallow whole.

Sit down in your favorite pose and watch me tell the story with the help of some sign boards.

I live in Commodore Park in Seattle with over 60 nests. Jeff, the one who helping out by typing this up, has a GBH nest only 4 blocks away from his house. Those heron live on a platform in lights over the baseball field. We at Commodore Park build our nests in trees.

Some general facts about us.

Staging is the term when I find a good location for my nest, find a mate, make sure it’s a good location for getting food and start making my nest. It happens in early December and February.

I get to do some fancy dance moves, use my beak to do some playful duels with my mate, show off my special feathers just for this season and start building or refreshing a previous nest. This happens in February and March.

My mate lays an egg every other day giving her time to develop the egg. Incubation starts after the first egg is laid so one of my chicks is larger than the others. The eggs in my nest are called a clutch and my mate and I usually have two but sometime four. Both of us take on the job of incubation. This happens in March and early April.

After my mate lays the eggs, we have to wait 25-30 days for them to hatch. Then the real work begins. We have to keep finding food for not only us, but also for those hungry chicks. For two weeks our little chicks can’t keep themselves warm so we need to provide warmth and protection. After two weeks, their feathers have developed enough so they can keep themselves warm. Then my mate and I can be gone at the same time getting food. This is happening right now.

After two months, our chicks are developed enough to fly from tree to tree by themselves. As they get older, it’s a good idea to drop the food and fly away. The chicks fight for the food and their beaks could hurt. It’s fun watching the chicks strengthen their muscles by flapping their wings. Again, it’s best to not be in the nest. One chick can flap and keep hitting another chick. This will happen in later May and June.

After the chicks fledge, they are on their own. Learning to fish is a difficult skill to learn, so some go to grassy fields to get frogs and anything else they can catch. Patience is what we are known for, waiting for just the right time to jerk our bill out to catch the prey.

Here are some additional photos I had Jeff take of our nests and last year’s chicks. I’m not very well built for taking photos, but I can sure hunt and fly.



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