Friday, May 1, 2015

Baby herons make their entrance


The live heron cam on March’s Point in Padilla Bay is back! The springtime spectacle began in mid-April when the fuzzy baby herons began making their entrance into the world.



The live cam is one of the many installations at the Breazeale Interpretive Center at the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Reserve, which is administered and managed by Ecology. Luckily, anyone with a computer and internet access can use the live cam (9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday) to keep an eye on the babies.

Herons have nested at this site on Padilla Bay since the late 1970s. Today it's believed to be the largest nesting area for great blue herons in all of western North America, with recent estimates ranging from 600-700 nests.

Young birds begin to take flight about 60 days after hatching and abandon the nest after 64 to 90 days, so we have about six more weeks to watch them grow.

For more information about Padilla Bay's estuarine research and monitoring, visit http://www.padillabay.gov/.




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