Heron "hunting" in the mist
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Every season brings its own distinct marvels to the lakes at Heather Farms. Spring swells the buds of the waterside willows, summer finds lines of fluffy ducklings and goslings bobbing behind their parents in the still water, and fall sees the smoke trees full of their strange lacy snowball seed cases. But most people's least favorite season - the bone-chilling fogbound winter - is a paradise for birders.
Winter denudes the lakeside willow tangles of their foliage, and allows us glimpses of the herons that hunker down in the shady overhang. They fish there year-round, but only in winter can the observant trail walker or cyclist spy them, just inches away from the asphalt and totally immobile.
The Heather Farms lakes are home to at least six species of the Ardeidae family - the herons, egrets, and bitterns. There are 60 species worldwide, but only 13 in North America, so a trip to the lakes on a winter morning can net you views of about half of the species to be seen on our continent. On our morning one-mile bike rides along the Contra Costa Recreation Trail, we regularly spot the Black-Crowned Night Heron, the Green Heron, the fabulous Great Blue Heron, tall as a 6-year old, two species of egrets: the Snowy, and the Cattle, and the chubby little American Bittern.
The herons and egrets are the long-legged water birds that Audubon and Roger Tory Peterson made famous in their colorful plates. They sport beautiful long plumes in the mating season, which starts in February in Northern California - another reason why winter is prime time for their admirers. These birds were hunted almost to extinction in the 1800's for their seasonal plumes, which were used to adorn ladies' hats. In fact, the Audubon Society was formed in the urgency to save these elegant birds, and the group's symbol for many years was the snowy egret.
Herons and egrets fish in deeper water than the bitterns, which are smaller, shorter, and shyer. All species share the ability to change their appearance from squat and hunched to long and lean, just by stretching out the long necks they keep folded up against their chest.
Watching herons fish is especially rewarding in winter, when the tule fogs render the air almost as dark as the murky water below. With no glare off the water's surface, the birds can see the torpid fish better, and the chill waters render the fish slower to escape. With fewer frogs, turtles and crayfish available before spring sets in the herons set their sights on. minnows and bottom-feeding catfish. They can stand motionless for many minutes on end, and then stab too fast for the eye to follow, and come up with a twisting fish in their beak.
There is something of the Japanese print in the angular aspect of a stock-still heron looming gray against the lighter gray of the fog, and the darker gray of the water. The subtle, low-contrast shades of the composition are as intriguing, and as pleasing in their way, as the brighter palette of other seasons, such as the teal flash of the mallard against the blue of the lake in summer.
In the chill silence, muffled by the foggy mists of time, the Great Blue Heron has an almost prehistoric appearance, all bent at odd angles with unblinking black eyes. It's certainly easy, caught up in the atmosphere of the scene, to believe the current convention that birds descended from dinosaurs.
The bike rides are bitter cold in winter, with frost still white and sparkling on piles of leaves and the wooden bridge at the end of the lakes. Our fingers are numb despite our gloves, and the sunless trip in the tule fog would be without reward if it weren't for the heron-hunting along the banks, with the girls calling out each specie as we pass. Soon the spring will swell the willow buds, and the Night-Crowned and Green herons will gradually disappear behind their canopy for another year.
Each season has its sightings, but the herons transformed grim and glum winter into an exciting quest for some of the most mystical moments I have enjoyed as a birder.
Documentation:
Wonders of Egrets, Bitterns, and Herons by Wyatt Blassingame. Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1982
The Herons of the World by James Hancock and Hugh Elliott. Harper & Rowe, 1978.
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Questions? Brian McKinney
(bmckinne@home.com)