From south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Fri Apr 16 11:04:46 2004 Received: from www.plaidworks.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i3GI2c0d027736 for <[[email protected]]>; Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:02:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from granger.mail.mindspring.net (granger.mail.mindspring.net [207.69.200.148]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i3GI0b2D027662 for <[[email protected]]>; Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:00:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from h-68-164-82-62.snvacaid.dynamic.covad.net ([68.164.82.62] helo=ix.netcom.com) by granger.mail.mindspring.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1BEXdk-0000F9-00 for [[email protected]]; Fri, 16 Apr 2004 14:00:36 -0400 Message-ID: <[[email protected]]> Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:00:34 -0700 From: delphinus <[[email protected]]> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: [[email protected]] Subject: Re: [SBB] Lake Cunningham - Nesting Herons References: <[[email protected]]> In-Reply-To: <[[email protected]]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: [[email protected]] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5b1 Precedence: list List-Id: South Bay Birding List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Errors-To: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Bill, I'm posting this for all to see in case anyone wants to find the Black-crowned Night Heron chicks... I stopped by Lake Cunningham this morning. I did not find the same large chicks that we saw last Wed. but I did see some new ones. These are definitly little chickies and they were pecking at mom's beek for food. I saw 2 chicks, 1 larger than the other. The nest location is as follows (link to map below): http://www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/prns/regionalparks/lcp/map.jpg If you park in the dirt parking lot at the south end of the lake, walk northeast to the first island. Position yourself so you are between the pine tree on the left and the nesting Great Egrets on the right. Look at the shrub to the right of the pine tree. In the center is an opening and in there is the nest with chicks. I found another nest on the northeast side of the island. From the first nest continue walking north until you come to a white buoy. Position yourself such that the buoy is on your right. To the left of the buoy look into the shrub that makes contact with the water line. In that shrub about 3ft up from the water line is another nest. I could not see the nest, but I could see an adult bird arranging twigs and sitting in the nest. Usually Night herons sit up straight while roosting but this one was sitting as though there were eggs in the nest. To the left of the nesting adult bird above was another pair. I watched them groom each other a bit but mostly they just sat togther shoulder-to-shoulder making contact like they were leaning on each other. No nest or babies in sight, but maybe this indicated there will be one soon. I looked closely at all the adult birds I found ,~15 adults and 2 immatures (no down mixed in with the feathers), to try to find evidence of nests or chicks but thats all I found. I also saw one pair of Great Egrets mating on one of the nests. North of the heron island is a picnic area called Lakeview. I saw a downy Kildeer chickie in the grass to the right of this picnic area. Several families of Mallards were swimming in the lake and continuing north along the path to the next island the Double-crested Cormorants with their blue-blue eyes are proudly displaying their crests. Some with white crests and some with black. --Summer Brasuel Bill Bousman wrote: > At 06:17 PM 4/15/04, you wrote: > >> Hi! >> >> In my summary of Wednesdays SVCAS fieldtrip to Lake Cunningham I >> failed to provide the location of the Black-crowned Night Heron chicks. >> Looking at the map (link provided, I hope it works) the Great Egret >> nests and Night Heron chicks are located on the southeastern most >> island. Standing on the paved path east of the island, look in the >> shrubs in the center of the island 5-6 ft above the water line. I did >> not see a Night Heron nest, but the mama and 2 chicks were in those >> shrubs. This is to the right and below the nesting Great Egrets. > > > Dear Summer, > > Can you describe the Black-crowned Night Heron chicks and why you call > them chicks rather than immatures? We often find adult and immature > Black-crowned Night Herons in the county in the summer, but their > nests are generally remote so that we do not often find them. When > the young birds first leave the nest, they often show natal down and > this is clear evidence of nesting, but juvenile or immature birds hold > that plumage for a year, so the discovery of that plumage by itself is > not proof of nesting. However, if you saw any evidence of dependency, > such as feeding by the adult, or begging activities by the young, this > would be proof. Sorry, to be such a pest, but I'm just trying to make > sure that what you saw was confirmation of nesting. > > Bill > > _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. 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