If you are reading this and live in the Twin Cities of Minnesota you have a treat right out your backdoor. A Blue Heron Rookery!
What is a rookery? Well, a rookery is like a bird condo complex. Other animals who live within a small area can also live in rookeries, but I learned about them through the Blue Heron colony in Ballard Washington.
If you ever go to the Locks in Ballard - Seattle suburb, and look to the top of the trees there you will see 20-40 huge bird nests. Look even closer and you will see the Heron's sitting in them, not just for bringing up their young, but as living quarters.
In Minnesota it is a little different as the Blue Heron migrates to a little warmer country in the winter, but every spring they head back to their summer home in the trees on the Mississippi River.
I watch for them, on the bus every morning, and it excites me to start seeing a pair here or there, but this morning every nest had 2 birds sitting up and watching the sun rise.
I wanted to get up and be a "Rookery Tour Guide" on the metro bus as no one else was looking and admiring this wonderful view. Some day I will get the nerve to do this.
So welcome home Blue Heron's and may your Minneapolis condo complex provide you with continued shelter, good fishing, and admiring fans.
If you live in Minneapolis and want to check it out at http://www.nps.gov/miss/planyourvisit/nortmiss.htm
10 Minutes from Downtown Minneapolis on Interstate 94. If you take a bus downtown that takes I-94 between I694 and Downtown, look to the left around the grain elevators and you will see them! Once the leaves fill in on the trees the Rookery will be hidden from the road, so look now, you can too be "Rookery Tour Guides"!
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