Great Blue Heron Rehab Photos
When hunting, a great blue walks slowly through the shallows or stands in wait, head hunched on its shoulders. Favorite foods include fish (up to a foot in length), water snakes, frogs, crayfish, mice, shrews, and insects. Individuals are believed solitary except in breeding season. Call: three or four hoarse squawks.
Great blue herons inhabit saltwater or freshwater areas near trees suitable for nesting-the more remote and inaccessible, the better. They nest singly, in colonies and among the nests of other herons, often in the same tree. The nest is a platform of large sticks lined with fine twigs and leaves and built in a sturdy crotch or on a limb. Its outside diameter is 25-40 inches. The male brings nesting material to the female, which does most of the actual building. Nests may be used several years.
The female lays 3-6 (usually four) pale bluish-green, unmarked eggs. Incubation is by both sexes and takes 28 days. Both parents feed the young, which are ready to leave the nest in three weeks.
In spring, the great blue heron is a common migrant in March and April; in summer, a breeding resident, with the greatest concentrations of nests occurring in the northwestern counties. The species generally breeds across the northern United States, southern Canada and Alaska. In the fall, great blue herons pass through our state from July to October. Some remain as winter residents, hanging out along waterways and other open water. The species winters principally along the Atlantic coast, the southern states and Central and South America.
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to enlarge unable to stand after being hit by a car.
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