Fitzgerald Lake Conservation Area - Two Weeks in the Life of a Great Blue Heron! (June 2023)

During the last 150 years, the population of great blue herons has rebounded in Massachusetts. In Birds of the Connecticut River Valley (1937), authors Aaron Bagg and Sam Eliot noted that great blue herons were considered "a rare summer resident" in 1889 and that the sighting of a great blue in Northampton on July 7,1888, was an obsevation worth recording. By 1930, a few great blue heron nests and small rookeries were known in the Connecticut River Valley, but they were still quite rare. Today, great blue herons regularly nest in Massachusetts, including in the Fitzgerald Lake Conservation Area (FLCA) and a few other sites in Northampton.
Here's a look at two very busy weeks of great blue activity at a beaver pond within the FLCA.
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