Today I’ve got a guest post from Nancy DeStefanis, executive director of San Francisco Nature Education, aka the Heron Lady of Golden Gate Park. She offers this update on the Great Blue Herons at their namesake lake:
We live right by the large Great Blue Herons rookery, which is getting bigger every year. We frequently rescue juveniles from our colony, many of which are returned into the Wild after 7-12 weeks in rehab, often for broken or shifted bones, ribs, malnutrition, etc. Yesterday in the evening we rescued another baby Blue Heron, which we had to keep overnight, since our local PAWS Wild Life Rehab Center (2-hour drive one way from us) was about to close. The plan, as always in sircumstances such as these, was to bring that poor little one to PAWS first thing this morning. But...inspite of every effort made (to keep that juvenile Blue Heron warm and stress-free through the night in our residence) he did not survive the night. I try to remind myself of many Blue Herons that we were able to return into the Wild, but for some reason my mind and my heart is fixated on those that we could not save. Like this little precious one.
We live right by the large Great Blue Herons rookery, which is getting bigger every year. We frequently rescue juveniles from our colony, many of which are returned into the Wild after 7-12 weeks in rehab, often for broken or shifted bones, ribs, malnutrition, etc. Yesterday in the evening we rescued another baby Blue Heron, which we had to keep overnight, since our local PAWS Wild Life Rehab Center (2-hour drive one way from us) was about to close. The plan, as always in sircumstances such as these, was to bring that poor little one to PAWS first thing this morning. But...inspite of every effort made (to keep that juvenile Blue Heron warm and stress-free through the night in our residence) he did not survive the night. I try to remind myself of many Blue Herons that we were able to return into the Wild, but for some reason my mind and my heart is fixated on those that we could not save. Like this little precious one.
That photo is gorgeous. Love all of the magic in our park.