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Baby Boom at Cub Creek Heronry, Jordan Lake



On this beautiful Saturday morning (May 25) I spent
about an hour counting the young Great Blue Herons at
the Cub Creek Heronry at the northern end of Jordan
Lake.  I counted 51 nests, 18 adults and 104 baby
herons.  The first four babies were born a few days
before April 11, and six weeks later they are still
all on the nests where they were first seen.  These
oldest juveniles in this year's crop are now standing
on the edges of the nests, occasionally jumping to a
nearby branch, but showing no great hurry to go for
their first flight.

I have been keeping a map of the nests to try to get a
total count of young for the year.  Today I saw 8
nests with two young herons, 13 nests with three young
herons, 11 nests with four young herons, and one nest
with five young herons.  Comparing this with previous
visits I count 11 additional young not seen today, but
seen on previous visits.  They may have just been
sitting down out of sight today.  That gives a total
of 115 young seen so far this year.  One nest did have
a dead baby who had fallen (or been pushed) out of the
nest and was caught up in the branches just below the
nest.  Another ominous sign today: eight black
vultures hanging around in the middle of the heronry,
mostly just perched on some of the dead tree branches.
 This is the first time I have seen vultures actually
perched at the heronry; previously there have just
been one or two turkey vultures soaring overhead. At
one point I saw five of the vultures on the ground
obviously eating something, but it was too far away to
get a good view.

A green heron also came for a visit today, along with
all the usual woodpeckers, great crested flycathers,
and other summer birds.  Most surprisingly I saw very
few mosquitoes; altogether a very pleasant morning.

Alan Johnston
Chapel Hill, NC
alanj46@yahoo.com




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