Herons At Home SCLT Discovery Session

The Great Blue Herons are back in Wyoming after a winter down south in the sun, and they are beginning their nest building. There is a heron rookery in Sheridan, just past the Sportsman’s Warehouse building.

On Thursday, April 28, Sheridan Community Land Trust kicked off their first “Unplug with Discovery Sessions” event of 2022 “Herons at Home” at the site.

Dr. Julie Rieder of Science Kids talked about the Great Blue Herons

One question from the assembled crowd of about 80 adults and youngsters was “Do the herons migrate and where?”

Rieder said that because these birds feed mainly on aquatic animals, they depend on open water most of the time.

But, she added:

Once the water freezes in the northern climates, they head south, usually to Mexico and Central America. If the water stays open, some birds will stick around. She said those that do migrate usually come back to Northern Wyoming in late March.

“Once they get here, they make pairs,” she said. Each year they choose a new mate, but during the breeding season they are “Monogamous sort of.”

The herons come to the rookeries year after year, and they continue to build on the existing nests. The males bring in twigs to the females to build the nest. Nests can be four feet across and 3 feet deep. Sometimes there are over 100 nest in a large rookery.

Herons lay from one to six eggs, but once they lay one or two, they start incubating, and the first chick that hatches is the largest, and gets the most food. Sometimes, if there is a good food supply, they can raise up to four chicks, more common is one or two. Eggs start out pale blue but bleach to white in the sun, Rieder said.

Another questions asked was if there were any other rookeries in our area, and Reider said there is a large one on the South East side of Tongue River Reservoir, and cormorants nest there as well. There is also one along the Tongue River behind the Dayton Community Center, in Dayton.

One youngster wondered, due to the body style of herons, if they were related at all to cranes.

The viewing site was set up with spotting scopes to get a close up view of the herons, and participants were urged to bring binoculars as well.

The Discovery Sessions are free to attend and are a partnership of Sheridan Community Land Trust and Science Kids.