I’ve been thinking about a few interesting experiences in 2025. On about a dozen occasions last spring, I visited nearby public lands where Great Blue Herons had formed a small rookery. I arrived in March, when breeding season was just a rumor. The nests themselves were already present, mostly intact from the year prior, but the herons weren’t doing much other than staying perched nearby as if to defend their home. By April, they started fiddling around and supplementing the aeries with a fresh supply of sticks. And they did this a lot. The big waders would fly up with a stick, put it in place and carefully adjust a few others. Sometimes one heron would pass a stick to another, and as I later learned this behavior had significance as a courtship ritual.
Throughout April, there was a lot of sitting on the nest and so presumably egg-laying was under way. Nesting season starts early—even when Aprils are frosty—but there still would be about four weeks before the appearance of chicks. I was starting to wonder if chicks had hatched by the second week of May. The herons seemed to be as fastidious as usual about their nests and sticks, but maybe there was more to it. It was hard to tell even through a scope (at nearly 100 yards away and 40 feet below them).
Then on May 12 I finally saw a movement in one of the nests. That moment is depicted in the video above. It was indeed one of the rakish-looking chicks with a shaggy head of feathers. It appeared to be just one chick, though. If others were up there, they were doing a good job of staying hidden.
Something strange happened in northeastern Illinois on May 16: an unprecedented dust storm blew in that darkened skies and lashed the region with 70 mph winds. I thought of the herons on those nests and how they would have to ride out the gale so exposed in the tall trees. A storm like that one is a mortal risk to the herons, especially the young one that was not yet able to fly. A toppled tree would mean time on the ground, and exposure to a raccoon, fox, or coyote.
I wasn’t able to visit for a couple weeks, but when I got back I observed something stunning: four juveniles with wild crests standing brazenly in one of the nests, an adult accompanying them. The family had apparently weathered the dust storm. The young ones were noisy, too, emitting squawks that were something akin to a grackle or parrot.
I was only able to visit again about a week later, but by this point at least one of the fledglings had ventured from the nest onto another nearby tree.
I haven’t shared this story until now because there was nothing particularly exceptional about it. In fact, it was mundane and sometimes watching the birds was a little boring. Great Blue Herons are downright common and rookeries aren’t terribly hard to find. But for a few weeks it was a front-row seat to something I’d never really stopped to observe before. And that was what made all those visits worth it.
