Page:Bird-lore Vol 08.djvu/30

 GREEN HERON ON NEST The Little Green Heron By RETT E. OLMSTEAD THE spring and summer of 1905 furnished abundant opportunity for the study of the Little Green Herons in this vicinity, The birds are numerous and several nests have been found and the birds studied. The birds are found more frequently than elsewhere along the creeks, though not infrequently they are found nesting in an orchard sometimes quite a distance from water. LaSalle county, Illinois, furnished my birding ground for study the past season very largely. The Herons were seen fishing along the creeks and their courses noted, and finally a nest was discovered in a hawthorn some twenty rods from Indian Creek. The nest is made of sticks alone, and is a very simple affair at that, somewhat similar to the nest of the Mourning Dove, with only enough sticks to hold the eggs. The nests found, twelve or fifteen of them, were usually located in the top of the trees, some fifteen feet from the ground. In the orchard, an old and largely abandoned one, with tall scraggly trees, and located within fifteen rods of Indian Creek, I counted eleven nests of the Herons, but two of them occupied at the time. At any time, (12)