Sky Watch Friday: Herons in Flight

It appears that spring has finally arrived her in Minnesota. Technically the first day of spring is tomorrow but we have been lucky and have had spring like weather all this week. It began this weekend, both days were sunny with highs up in the mid 50s. I spent all weekend outside looking at signs of spring, like the song of red-winged blackbirds staking out their territory or the sight of eagles wheeling high above the Mississippi on their way back to nests in the north. Monday turned out to be an even better day, weather wise, with the temps getting into the 60s for the first time this year, so I decided to use some of my vacation and took a half day off of work so that I could go out and enjoy the beautiful weather.
I decided to head over to the North Mississippi Regional Park in Minneapolis to look for another sure sign of spring. This park is not very large but it runs along the Mississippi River near a small island which is the location of a great blue heron rookery. Each spring the herons return here to nest, lay eggs, and raise their young.

I actually thought that I might be a bit too early, since the weather had just turned warm with in the past week or so and I had not seen any reports on the local list server, but I was happy to see that the herons had already returned.

Only a few of the herons had paired up already. Unfortunately it was too windy for them to work on nest building, once they pair off the males will go out and find sticks that they will bring back to the nest and offer to the female who will use it to do a little remodeling. Most of the activity was from males fighting over nests, a good nest is a sure way to attract a female. This would occasionally lead to one of them taking off, or getting pushed off. They would then circle the island and have to fight the headwind to land in a new location which allowed me to get some nice flight shots.