Olde Blue

There are several “local” Great Blue Herons that I am acquainted with on Fishers Island.

Darby Cove, Hungry Point and Hooverness all provide very suitable habitat that sustains these birds as residents. These three sites provide tidal marsh activities that seem to mimic an ideal estuary ecosystem with salinity levels that let native wetland grasses thrive. In turn, grasses provide essential filtering capabilities of surface water runoff; catching and retaining excess nutrients, and pollutants that affect fish and amphibian egg development.

I observe quite often The Great Blue Heron snacking on frogs as well as the small fish that hide in the dark, damp roots of our Island wetlands.

Always very alert to my presence, it is only a loud “squawk” and long wing span shadow hovering overhead that I get to document during most monitoring treks.

But I was pleased to get to know The Great Blue Heron while studying in Florida.

It was an opportunity to see the bird’s nesting and feeding habits AND discover that immature Blue Herons are actually white-easily mistaken for the Snowy Egret

So, I return to Fishers Island, getting to know my neighbors even better!