Turning back to the east, I found the lagoon a flood of crimson glory with my palm-topped island swimming in it, all rimmed with fire, for the sun was just behind the dense trees whose feathery fronds seemed just crisping with its flame. And then I looked again, carefully, and took the bird glass from my pocket and focused that on the tree tops as best I might against the crimson glow, for there above the fronded palms stretched a half-dozen or so of long necks with big, keen-pointed beaks set on small heads that topped the necks at right angles. Standing in the palm tops, or perhaps sitting there, were a dozen great Ward’s herons. I watched them for some time in their comings and goings, and soon made up my mind that there were many nests there.
I had stumbled upon a Ward’s heron rookery and was greatly pleased. Yet so far the stumble was a long-distance one. The island was an eighth of a mile away, and though there are boats on the lagoon, the saw grass grows so dense and divides portions of it off from other portions so definitely and finally, that none were available. You cannot penetrate the saw grass with a boat. I tried wading in it out toward my island, for the lagoon is nowhere deep except in the alligator holes, but only a pretty desperate man would make his way far in the saw grass. The herons flew croaking to and fro to their nests, but I had to be content to watch them with the bird glass.
Some days later I had built a tiny canoe of cotton drilling, stretched over palmetto-stalk ribs, and painted. The adventures of this wee coracle, going to the lagoon, on the lagoon, and coming from the lagoon were humorously grotesque and exciting, but they have no part in this story. It is sufficient to say that it floated like a bird—too much like a bird sometimes—and that after due study and persistence, I reached the island in it a morning about a week after the discovery of it. I was right. The palmetto tops were full of the nests of Ward’s heron.
The island itself was a gem of palm-topped green in the clear water of the lagoon. Along its edges sedges and bulrushes grew from the water, and as the ground rose one came upon a grove of the lovely olive-colored myrtle, the spicebush of the South. Among these myrtles growing almost breast high were the Osmunda ferns, regalis mostly, so thick that they made progress slow. Beneath the palmettos was a noisy debris of fallen leaves, that rattled and crunched under foot, reminding one of walking through Northern woods in winter when there is a crust on the snow. It was not until I struck this pseudo snow crust that the herons took alarm. Then there was a crashing in the tree tops as great wings flapped against the broad, stiff leaves of the palms and the birds took flight with harsh croaks, circling about till I was reminded of the harpies in the Æneid. Some flapped off to the mainland, others lighted
A little blue heron and her nest, the commonest Florida heron
in the marsh shallows near by and froze there. It is surprising how immediately a big heron, thus motionless, becomes but an inanimate part of the landscape and escapes notice. Never before had I seen the big birds so near, every mark and feather of their noble forms being brought to close range by the glass. A most striking feature was the long, drooping, graceful plume which grew from the back of the head, a mark of the breeding season.
I found young birds in various stages of growth, from those almost grown which took wing when too closely approached, to little chaps that peeped beseechingly when the old birds came sailing back, evidently expecting to be fed. There were other nests in which I could see no young birds which seemed to be in good condition and which I thought contained eggs. But how was I to prove this? I might “shin” one of the smooth, straight trunks if it were like that of a Northern tree. But shinning a palmetto is another matter. The endogenous fiber crumbles on the outside, as to the weather-worn pith, but leaves the trunk beset with tiny splinters that fill whatever rubs too intimately against them. I might climb one of these palmetto trunks in that way if I had to; in fact, a morning or two later—but of that anon. I decided that one tall palm dominated a series of nests and if I could perch among its fronds I would be able to make intimate study of what goes on in heron land. I circumnavigated the island and crossed it from side to side, finding there nothing to alarm but much to interest.
Some days later I came back, equipped to go to the top of my selected palm. It was a different sort of a morning. All the day before the wind had blown from the south and the sun had shone fervently in on a land that lay sweltering in warmth under a midsummer-like temperature. The weather which had been like that of the finest October became like that of the finest July. A myriad insects, before silent, found a voice as evening came on and the night, so full of genial warmth, thrilled with their gentle calls. Frog voices came from the little ponds in the savanna on the way down to the big lagoon, and that chill which comes with a windless dawn even was not great enough to silence them. Only the daybreak put out the lights of the big fireflies whose yellow-green, fairy lamps had glowed and paled all night long among the grasses and bushes of the roadside. Something of the fervor of the tropics had come upon the land.