About 10:00 am this morning, I was driving home with my two dogs after a good walk around the 100-acre tract of what used to be the Gettysburg Country Club and is now a part of the Gettysburg Battlefield. Along Mummasburg Road to my right, I spotted a Great Blue Heron who appeared to be hunting fish in a roadside culvert. On approach of my car, the heron flew up and over the road before veering back to the pasture, where he flew low to the ground directly alongside us. The heron flew for such a good stretch, maybe a hundred feet, that it seemed we were being escorted. When the long-legged wader finally settled to the ground, my sense was of an old, hunched man, cold and hungry.
Once home, I visited my ‘go-to’ web site for information on the birds of Pennsylvania to see if this heron had “missed the bus” in heading somewhere warmer for the winter. That site is https://www.pabirds.org
and hosted by the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology. There I followed the menu tab for ‘Birding’ with a dropdown menu that takes you to a running list of all the birds of Pennsylvania, including resident birds (year-round), breeding birds, wintering birds, and those migrating through. A color-coded map is provided for each bird, and here’s a screen capture that tells the story of my cold and hungry heron.
While most of the state welcomes heron for breeding (red area), apparently a few southeastern and southcentral counties (including Adams) host herons in the winter! I didn’t know this but am glad to know it now, because it means that this heron most likely knows what he’s up to, after all.
Till next time . . . Keep birds in your heart.
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