The Great Blue Heron

With its striking plumage, the great blue heron is one of the mostwidely recognized wading birds in North America. Riding on kelp beds inthe Queen Charlotte Islands, wading in coastal streams along themainland, poised motionless at the water's edge on a mistymorning, or nesting in the limbs of old-growth forests, this statelybird is a familiar sight on the coast of British Columbia. The largestcolonies are on the Fraser River delta, an area of great ecologicalsignificance to the north Pacific. Despite a growing body of knowledgeregarding many aspects of the species' breeding biology andcourtship behaviour, the foraging and population ecology of this birdremains something of an enigma. In his beautifully illustrated book,Robert Butler follows the great blue heron through a year on the coastof British Columbia. He draws on more than a decade of work to throwlight on the adaptability of this magnificent bird to a temperateclimate, its diet and breeding habits, habitat use, and conservation.Although the great blue heron has become a symbol of wetlandconservation, in recent years it has had to face new challenges as aconsequence of rapid urbanization of its environment. In The GreatBlue Heron the author also describes the B.C. coast and shares avision for the conservation of the Strait of Georgia and the FraserRiver delta.