40 Fun Facts About Great Blue Heron

A great blue heron can stand four feet tall, yet roughly how much does a typical adult weigh?

About 5 pounds, give or take one, is all a typical four-foot adult weighs, thanks in part to its hollow bones. Its wings can still span six to seven feet.

Great blue herons are widespread and familiar, yet people often mistakenly call them by which other bird's name?

Crane is the label many people reach for, but the two belong to different families. A sandhill crane is a much bulkier bird than a great blue heron.

How does a great blue heron usually carry its long neck in flight, unlike a stork or an ibis?

Curled into an S, the neck rests back on the shoulders while the long legs trail behind. Specially shaped neck bones make the tight fold possible.

A high share of rod-type photoreceptors in a great blue heron's eyes gives the bird which hunting advantage?

Night vision lets great blue herons keep fishing after dark. They feed by day and by night, and are busiest around dawn and dusk.

In one recorded fight, a great blue heron fatally wounded which attacking bird of prey before dying itself?

A golden eagle was mortally wounded by the heron it attacked, though the heron also died of its injuries. An adult's size and dagger-like bill make it risky prey for any predator.

Which Major League Soccer club's crest shows two great white herons whose interlocking legs form the letter M?

Inter Miami CF set the herons on its crest around a sun with seven rays, a nod to the shirt number that co-owner David Beckham often wore as a player.

Great blue herons crumble special chest feathers into a powder and work it through their plumage to remove what?

Slime and oil from fish come away with the powder, which the heron uses like a washcloth as it preens. The chest feathers that supply it never stop growing and fraying.

The recovery of which mammal has given great blue herons in the northeastern US new swamps for feeding and nesting?

Beaver numbers have rebounded across the northeastern US and southern Canada, and their ponds form a patchwork of swamps and meadows that suits hunting and nesting herons.

Florida's all-white great white heron, now usually treated as a form of the great blue heron, was long classed as what?

A separate species is how the great white heron was long classified, and some experts still argue for it. It averages larger than other great blues and keeps mostly to salt water.

Great blue herons swallow their catch whole, and some have died doing what with prey too large for them?

Choking on it is a real risk for a bird that gulps its food down in one piece. Herons usually go for fish only four to eight inches long.

Great blue herons groom their feathers with a fringed, comb-like claw found on which part of the body?

The middle toe of each foot carries the fringed claw. A heron runs it through the powdery down on its chest as it preens.

The great blue heron's slightly smaller counterpart across Europe and Asia is a heron named for which colour?

The grey heron is the Old World counterpart, with a plain pale neck and none of the great blue's brown tones. Strays occasionally turn up on North America's northern coasts.

The world's largest heron, an African bird about twice as heavy as a great blue heron, carries which legendary name?

The Goliath heron of sub-Saharan Africa can stand five feet tall. Only it and Asia's white-bellied heron outgrow the great blue.

Which 18th-century naturalist first formally described the great blue heron, in a work called Systema Naturae?

Carl Linnaeus named the bird Ardea herodias, pairing the Latin and the Ancient Greek words for a heron. The scientific name therefore says the same thing twice.

Which artist painted the great blue heron as Plate 211 of his monumental book The Birds of America?

John James Audubon painted the heron in watercolour, and Robert Havell's London workshop engraved and coloured the plate. The original is held by the New-York Historical Society.

In Nova Scotia, which flatfish was found to make up 98% of the great blue heron's diet?

Flounder was nearly the whole menu for Nova Scotia's herons. Elsewhere the catch follows what is plentiful, from sticklebacks in British Columbia to bass in California.

Before gulping down a spiny fish, a great blue heron often does what to break or relax its sharp spines?

The heron shakes it until the spines break or relax, then gulps the fish down. Smaller prey is simply grabbed in the bill, while larger fish are speared.

A study at fish hatcheries found that visiting great blue herons mostly caught stock in what condition?

Diseased fish made up most of the herons' catch, and they would have died shortly anyway. Sick fish linger near the surface, where a wading bird can reach them.

Along the Pacific coast, great blue herons often wait for a meal while standing on floating beds of which seaweed?

A bed of kelp makes a floating perch for a bird that normally hunts by wading. The heron stands poised on top and waits for a meal to swim by.

Cornell's bird lab suggests adding what to a garden fish pond to protect the fish from a visiting great blue heron?

A drain pipe laid in the pond gives the fish somewhere to hide when a heron comes hunting. Great blue herons are regular visitors to backyard goldfish ponds.

Great blue herons, like most birds in the United States, are legally protected by which century-old federal law?

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 protects the heron itself along with its feathers, eggs and nests. That holds even for a heron caught raiding a garden pond.

Which word for a great blue heron nesting colony was borrowed from a European member of the crow family?

Rookery comes from the rook, a crow relative that nests in crowded treetop colonies. A colony made up of herons is more precisely called a heronry.

Which Vancouver landmark holds one of North America's largest urban great blue heron colonies, beside its tennis courts?

Stanley Park has had herons nesting in it since at least 1921. Its colony, which sits close to the main entrance, has held as many as 183 nests.

During courtship, a male great blue heron repeatedly presents the female with which gift?

Sticks are the male's offering: he gathers them from the ground, from trees and even from unguarded nests. The female weaves them into a platform that can grow four feet across.

How does a great blue heron parent deliver a meal of fish to the chicks waiting in the nest?

Regurgitating it is the method both parents use. A parent feeding young chicks eats up to four times as much as one that is still sitting on eggs.

Great blue herons pair up for a single breeding season, but what do most do the following year?

Most choose a new mate each year, even though the nests themselves are reused for many years. Males reach the colony first and court passing females from a nest site.

Which tree-climbing mammal is known to take both large nestlings and many eggs from great blue heron colonies?

The raccoon is a nimble nest raider, which is one reason heron colonies favour islands and flooded trees that are hard to reach on foot. Ravens and crows steal eggs too.

A great blue heron defending its feeding spot approaches an intruder with wings spread and its bill pointing where?

Toward the sky goes the bill, with the head thrown back and the wings outstretched. Gulls and even people can be on the receiving end of the display.

Which sound does an alarmed great blue heron make, usually three or four times in a row?

A hoarse croak, repeated three or four times, is the alarm call. Great blue herons are fairly quiet for their family, though they have up to seven different calls.

Beyond the mainland Americas and the Caribbean, great blue herons also live on which Pacific island group?

The Galápagos host breeding great blue herons far out in the Pacific. Wanderers have also been recorded in Hawaii, Greenland and England.

Once grouped with storks, the great blue heron's family now sits in an order named after which birds?

Pelicans give their name to the order Pelecaniformes, where herons were moved after a 2008 genetic study. Ibises and spoonbills made the same switch.

North America's largest heron is only slightly taller than which all-white relative, yet weighs roughly twice as much?

The great egret shares the genus Ardea with the great blue heron and is nearly as tall, but far lighter in build. Its legs are black and its plumage pure white.

At the start of the breeding season, a great blue heron's dull yellowish bill briefly turns which colour?

Orange flushes the bill for a short spell as breeding begins, and the lower legs take on a similar tint. Adults also grow extra plumes on the lower back.

Which Pacific Northwest city made the great blue heron its official bird under Mayor Bud Clark?

Portland adopted the heron in 1986 after naturalist Mike Houck pitched the idea to the mayor. A local brewery soon launched a Blue Heron Pale Ale to match.

The great blue heron's family, Ardeidae, also includes which group of secretive marsh birds known for booming calls?

Bitterns belong to the same family as herons, but most nest alone in reed beds instead of in treetop colonies. Their deep booming does the job that visual displays do for colonial herons.

Which minor league baseball team has used a recoloured great blue heron as its logo since its 1996 debut?

The Delmarva Shorebirds play in Salisbury, Maryland. Frank Perdue's wish for a professional team on the state's Eastern Shore was the driving force behind the club.

Where dark and white great blue herons mix in Florida, a white-headed intermediate bird carries which naturalist's name?

Würdemann's heron has the body of a typical great blue heron but the white head of the great white form. It turns up mainly in the Florida Keys.

The oldest wild great blue heron on record, found in Texas, had reached at least what age?

24 years, plus another six months, was the age of the record holder. A typical great blue heron lives for about 15 years.

Away from trees, great blue herons have nested on channel markers, nest platforms and which hunters' structures?

Duck blinds are among the oddest nest sites on record, though most great blue herons still build in trees. Some treetop nests sit 100 feet or more off the ground.

A great blue heron chick hatches helpless in the nest; at roughly what age does it first fly?

Two months is about right: young herons fly at around 60 days old. They keep returning to the nest to be fed for roughly three more weeks.