Greg Miller points to many signs that southern birds from
drought-stricken areas are, and will be, showing up here in unusual
numbers. One example is little blue herons.
        You can read Peterjohn's account of this species (pp. 29-30) without
seeing any parallel with the current records. Hicks (1931. The American
Egret and the Little Blue Heron in Ohio during the summer of 1930.
Wilson Bulletin 43(4):268-281, online at
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v043n04/p0268-p0281.pdf ) reported
1185 little blues in the state in July-August 1930, *none* of them in
the adult blue plumage. This was in a short period during which juvenile
waders of this species and the snowy egret showed up in Ohio in
extraordinary numbers; perhaps this phenomenon was associated with dry
conditions in the south, but it did not involve adults.
        Other than a few adults seen in the western Lake Erie marshes beginning
in the 1980s, when small numbers began nesting irregularly on West
Sister Island, June records of little blue herons in the blue plumage in
Ohio are very scarce, and nearly all confined to the Lake shore. But all
of a sudden this year they are showing up in unexpected places. Here in
Franklin County, hardly a hotbed of unusual herons in the summer, spots
in the Metro Parks have recorded three adults on 3 June and five adults
at a different location on 22 June. Are these birds fleeing dried-up
areas way down south? Did they forgo breeding this year? Might inland
Ohio breeding occur if temperatures increase? Some of the climate-change
models suggest they might.
        It is worth considering that these and other birds of southern wetlands
will continuing showing up here this year, and we should heed Greg's
advice to look carefully in our currently abundantly wet spots.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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