A visit to the Heron Rookery

More Eggs from the Duchess!

Yesterday I gave myself a gift: I took the morning off and headed to Kensington Metropark.

✅ Backpack

✅ Binoculars

✅ Bird Book

✅ Bird Seed

✅ Bottle of Water.

I was ready!

A chorus of birdsong greeted me at my first stop, punctuated by the timpani of a woodpecker’s hammering across the Huron River.

The river is narrow here, the west shore a high wooded bluff overlooking the channel 50 feet below. This was a favorite campsite for the Huron, the tribe for whom this River is named. This river winds through the heart of their country.

Credit: Creative Commons

From here the Huron People could paddle west, then south, then back east to Lake Erie. The French fur trappers and traders called them “bon Iroquois.” They called themselves “Wendat,” or “People of the Peninsula” in their native tongue, the “Wyandot.”

They lived in communal longhouses, and sometimes wigwams.

Above: Huron Moccasins. Exhibit in the Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

There’s little trace of these people now. Only their names remain. But if you are quiet and focused you can still hear the shouts of the children and imagine their canoes on the river, before the devastating diseases of the Europeans wiped out most of their population.

I hopped back in the truck and headed to Wildwings Lake, anxious to see if the Great Blue Herons were nesting.

A strong cold wind blew across the water, directly in my face as I studied the Island Rookery.

At least half a dozen graceful mother herons were visible through my binoculars. They sat on their eggs, stretching now and then, carefully tending to their nest. More nests were being built or renovated, long strands of vines trailed the large birds as they flew up to the treetops, hovered in the breeze, then alit and began to weave the nesting material into the structure.

Occasionally one of the nesting birds raised herself gracefully, carefully preened, then reclined back in her nest, adjusting the blanket, so to speak.

And a blanket was needed against this wind!

Now a heron floats up above the treetops, then drops almost vertically and glides away upwind just above the cold lake waters. They’ll return soon with more nesting materials.

I quit trying to take pictures. How can you capture this scene on film? Especially with a phone camera? The honking of the geese, chasing and splashing; the nesting swans and dabbling mallards, the broad horizons.

I sat mesmerized by the grace and beauty of these large waders, now dancing in the treetops, their colorful feathers preened to perfection. These eggs should hatch just as the frogs and snakes and other heron prey are awakening.

This was my gift to myself.

Finally the cold got the best of me.

Time to head home for some hot soup.

The Duchess

Yesterday I asked for name suggestions for the Mallard Duck couple that has built a nest in the shrubbery outside our front door. Sue Cauhape, who writes Ring Around The Basin (highly recommended, check it out) came up with “Duchess.”

I like it! The Duchess and her Duke, Mallards of the Moment.

Back at home now, I noticed Duchess was off her nest. I pulled back the shrubbery to see:

It looked like she’d laid some more eggs…

I lifted the leaf layer carefully…

Eight eggs! The Duchess has been busy!

She hasn’t started incubating them yet. Once she does she won’t leave the nest much. Stay tuned!