Blue Heron - Nesting Update 16

Three days have gone by since our last post on the rookery. The chicks can hardly be called chicks anymore, with almost all their feathers and perhaps three-quarters the size of a parent. They no longer huddle in the nest, but stand, panting under the July sun, slowly moving from rim to rim of the nest, where they inspect each stick and bit of loose bark for something to eat. They are teenagers, I guess, with little to do between meals, and then to make lots of fuss and mess at meals.
The providing parent upon arrival holds its head up high until the greeting riot quiets a bit, then surrenders to the assault of lesser beaks grappling with each other as they fight over the quickly delivered food packages. Within two minutes the parent flees.
Other beaver pond activities help to pass the hours between feedings. For example, a juvenile Green Heron flew onto a branch in a drowned tree next to its much larger cousins. After raising its ragged crest and grunting its cry, it flew over our car and up the beaver ponds, perhaps in pursuit of inattentive parents.
Nearby, flowering milkweed provides meals to a number of insects, ranging from the hatching eggs of the Monarch butterfly to snails and the Red Milkweed Beetle, who come together on the blossoms to celebrate their purpose and to reset the mechanism for next summers festivities.