Charlie Fineran’s Photo of the Week captures a Green Heron enjoying life at the Allamuchy Pond.

I’ve been taking a lot of day trips visiting many of my favorite sites.  Many of these sites are rivers, ponds and wetlands areas which always offer such a diversity of life.  Looking back over my visits, I was impressed with the number of times I came across Green Herons and actually got some nice photos and videos of same. 

While not uncommon, they are certainly not a bird you would expect to see on every visit, many times this is because they blend in perfectly with their habitat!!  Half of my sightings are actually initiated after they sound an alarm and fly off to another location and it is from that second location I might get some photos!  Picture in your mind, you are approaching a wetlands area, green water, with many plants, grasses and low shrubs periodically doted across the entire area.  Now, you are panning the entire site within the panorama looking for all kinds of wildlife, very often, you will overlook this bird, as it is right down even with the surface of the water and it is often not moving around, it is usually stalking, looking and listening, for the slightest movement, which will trigger a quick strike, head thrust into and under the water!! 

I am now thinking, have I done an article for insidewarren.com?  I was actually thinking I probably have, BUT, as luck would have it, checked my records and no Green Heron!!  I now have my latest Photo of the Week article!! 

And now for a lesson on the Green Heron or “Green-backed Heron” –  (Butorides virescens).

Gleaned from my research this small heron of wooded swamps, streams and ponds is rarely found among flocks of other herons.  It likes to forage in secluded locations, stalking small fish, tadpoles and amphibians from a perch just above the water’s surface.  A cryptic bird, Green Heron are usually detected by its alarm call, given when flushed from its hunting haunts.  These birds are strongly migratory and may turn up almost anywhere.  VOICE – An agitated bird often gives a soft clucking sound; flight or alarm call is a piercing ‘skiew’ or ‘skyow’.  The most common heron in much of its range, it requires only a pond or stream with thick bushes or trees nearby for nesting and soft muddy borders in which to search for its prey.  It stretches its neck and bill forward as if taking aim, nervously flicking its short tail, and, after a few elaborately cautious steps, seizes the prey with a jab of its bill.  It is amazing, how these birds figure out where to strike!!  REMEMBER, their prey is usually out of sight under a solid green algae coated pond!!

DESCRIPTION:  16-22inches (41-56cm).  A dark crow-sized heron.  Crown is black, back and wings dark gray-green or gray-blue and this is depending on the lighting!  Neck is chestnut colored.  Bill is dark, legs are bright orange.  Immature birds have streaks on the neck, breast and sides.  NOTE: looking at the photos, notice the black crown, that can be a nice smooth look, OR it can be spiked up standing almost straight up, the green herons nervously flick this crown up and down!  Males are usually a little larger than females and also a little more colorful.

HABITAT:  Breeds mainly in freshwater or brackish marshes with clumps of trees.  Feeds along margin of any body of water.  They will also land and hunt from any object sticking up above the water.

NESTING:  3-6 pale green eggs or pale blue eggs in a loose nest of sticks built in a tree or dense thicket.  Both the male and female make the nest, the male gathers the material needed and the female constructs the nest.  Unlike most herons, Green Herons do not nest in colonies.  They are territorial and will attack an intruder.

RANGE:  Breeds over a wide region from Canadian border to Gulf of Mexico, west to the Great Plains, western Texas and southwestern New Mexico.  In the west from Fraser River delta of British Columbia south to California and Arizona.  Winters from coastal California south to southern Arizona and Texas, along Gulf Coast and along Atlantic Coast north to South Carolina.

DID YOU KNOW??

****The Green Heron uses tools, being one a few bird species to do so.  It drops objects such as bread crust, twigs, insects, earthworms and feathers onto the water to attract fish!!

****A group of herons is called “a battery”, “hedge”, “rookery” and “a scattering of herons”  REMEMBER – Green Herons are loners!!

I always enjoy a chance to observe these patient hunters, clinging onto whatever is available near the waters surface and then from those positions, look and listen getting ready for a quick strike at a target that is usually out of sight hidden under algae coated waters!!!  Please go to my Flickr site for more photos and videos of this impressive hunter – https://www.flickr.com/photos/charliefineran/albums/72157647149202027 

Enjoy Your Open Space

Charlie Fineran, Director Open Space

Allamuchy Township Environmental Commission – Chairman