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ISLAND OBSERVER: TONY AMOS
Hapless heron rescue
 | | Tony Amos is a research fellow at The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas. |
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This may go down in the ARK annals. Any of you who go boating in the bays will doubtless have seen the untidy nests of the great blue heron built of sticks a few feet above the water on any convenient structure. Nests may be built on old duck blinds, oil and gas standpipes, aids to navigation and partially sunken boats. At this time of year the gangly young great blues can be seen in the nests. Nature photographer Don Schoenfield of Aransas Pass had photographed one such nest near Conn Brown Harbor and noticed that one of the three nestlings had fishing line coming out of the bird's bill (you can just see the line in the photograph, courtesy of Schoenfield. The line had been unwittingly fed to the baby by its parent, perhaps hooked to a fish (the young cannot get their own food at this stage of their development).
Don called me to ask what could be done, and I knew that we had to get that line and probable hook out of the bird's mouth or it was doomed; and so might its nest mates if they too got entangled. With the help of friend Jack Robinson, we collected two ladders, a net, and with my new Leatherman at the ready in its pouch, we took off in Don's boat to find the wreck and its hapless inhabitants. Edging the boat up to the ancient shrimper's superstructure, we set up a ladder, and I gracefully clambered up to the very top. (Never stand on the top step, the warning label says. But lest you think I'm reckless, I had stanchions and cables to hold onto, and Jack was holding on to the base of the ladder). I knew any intrusion would be disturbing to the young birds, and we had to be careful not to cause them to fall out of the nest.
 | | COURTESY PHOTOS BY DON SCHOENFIELD Birds of a feather . . . One of these great blue herons had a close encounter of an unpleasant kind with a hook and monofilament line. |
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The first job was to grab the bird with the line, and this called for cutting the line first with the trusty Leatherman. (Rule #1: Make sure the pouch is not attached to your belt upside down, otherwise the tool will fall to the deck and possibly into the sea, and there you are on the top rung of a ladder on a drifting boat with a squawking heron in one hand and the essential tool completely out of reach.) Fortunately, fate stepped in, and the target bird slipped down into the net that Don was holding out in case of just such a slip up. There was a hook that had pierced the fleshy part of the bird's bill. It had to be cut out. Although there was some trauma to the bird's mouth, I decided it would be best not to take the nestling to the ARK, but to treat it with a little antibiotic ointment and let Mama Heron take care of its feeding and nurture.
 | | To the rescue . . . Animal Rehabilitation Keep (ARK) director Tony Amos came to the rescue. |
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The adventure was not over. One of the three birds had climbed down to an abandoned nest and eventually gone into the water. We had to fish that one out and were now faced with the task of getting two birds back into the nest. This was accomplished in a not exactly graceful way, bird in one hand, holding on to the ladder with the other, but all three were restored to their aerie. There were not too many photo ops during this somewhat amusing adventure, but here is an after-the-fact photo for you.
 | | Scene of the 'crime' . . . The blue heron nest was atop the rigging of this partially submerged shrimp boat at Conn Brown Harbor in Aransas Pass. |
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Two Kemp's ridleys are known to have nested on Mustang Island so far this year; one at Marker 23 and the other at Marker 93. Last year, there were four nests on Mustang Island. This year we should get more. The UTMSI/ARK turtle patrol is being done daily by volunteers, but we also ask the public at large to look out for nesting turtles or turtle tracks on Mustang Island Gulf beach. Call me at (361) 442-7638, Friends of the ARK at (361) 332-6361, the Padre Island National Seashore at (361) 949-8173 (ext. 228 or 226) if you see a sea turtle nesting.
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