This story has been bouncing around in my brain since September. I’ve written briefly about the subject before, but I felt that it deserved an article of its own. At least two reasons contributed to my procrastination: I didn’t really want it to be true, and I really did want you, as you read this, to understand what it means to me.
I won’t be able to convey my feelings perfectly; words don’t do that. But I can compare it to the time when, many years ago, I went seeking out the little three-room house where I was born, on a long dirt road, with forest on one side and the cotton fields my father worked on the other side. I went past familiar landmarks. Then I saw what made my heart ache: the dirt road was now a paved road, the house was gone, the cotton fields were gone … replaced by a large subdivision of ranch-style brick homes. All evidence of my childhood had vanished.
Herons are a fascination of mine. The first one I saw was standing on the edge of the Reedy River, on a sandbank, stalking prey in the water. The bird looks so exotic to me that I thought it had escaped from its cage in the zoo, which was close by. I later learned that was not true. I stalked that bird and at least one other much smaller one up and down the Reedy River with a point-and-shoot camera, as the river ran through Cleveland Park in Greenville SC.
On one occasion in the park, I saw a hawk attack a heron in midair. The heron let out a loud and scary dinosaur-like distress sound, confusing the hawk and causing it to fly off, while the heron safely landed in the middle of a shallow portion of the river.
A few years later, after I moved in with my sister and brother-in-law, I took my first trip to Lake Conestee Nature Park. That was ten years ago. By then I had a Nikon crop-sensor DSLR. On my first trip, I found the old West Bay observation platform. The first thing I saw as I stepped on that platform was a group of tall trees in the middle of a system of beaver ponds. In those trees were around 10 heron nests. It was almost unbelievable; except I was looking right at it.
Over the next few years I took dozens of photographs of those trees and those birds, watching them reinforce their nests, watching new nests being built by young pairs of herons, watching them feed their chicks, flying to and fro, bringing twigs and small prey back to those tall trees. One of the main reasons I upgraded my camera system to a full frame camera with higher quality lenses was to better capture photos of those birds. A number of times I rented a longer lens that I could not afford to buy, for a more intimate shot. In fact, I’ve been saving money for years in hopes of someday further upgrading my camera gear, at least in part because of my desire to get a better shot of those big, beautiful birds.
Perhaps you can imagine how my heart sank when I looked through the trees last year, on a day when many of the trails were blocked because of flooding and damage to footbridges and observation platforms. What I saw felt unacceptable. My view was not clear. I was so far away and could not get closer. But it appeared as though most of the trees that held heron nests were either gone or stripped bare of their limbs, damaged or destroyed by heavy storms and flooding.
Shortly after that, the Covid-19 shutdowns began. It was a long time before I got to go back to the park to confirm what I thought I had seen. In my heart, I hoped it was not true, just some sort of optical illusion. But my return trip in September revealed what I did not want to know: the heron colony had been almost completely destroyed.
As I stood on that brand-new observation platform, as I looked out across those beaver ponds and toward what used to be an impressive stand of tall trees, literally packed with heron nests … all I saw was one of the taller trees that still seem to be intact, with four nests in its limbs. It is possible that the other trees were still there, but the limbs that supported all those other nests were gone.
Those many years, as I looked out on those tall trees and watch those herons, it never occurred to me that there might come a day when the source of so much enjoyment for me no longer existed. It wasn’t exactly like losing contact with a childhood home, but the loss was unpalatable, though unavoidable. I have looked back at those old photos fondly. But when I’m standing on that platform, my imagination will not work for me. All I see, all I feel, is loss.
Ever since I found Lake Conestee Nature Preserve, it has been my favorite place to hike out in nature. And almost every time I have gone there, I would stop at the West Bay observation platform to look out over the beaver ponds and up to those tall trees, holding all those heron nests. I have seen 10 or more heron’s on the nests or in the trees at one time on several occasions. Even when I knew there were not going to be any herons around because of the season, I always looked, remembering things I’d seen there.
On my last visit, there was only one nest remaining in those trees. I would not be surprised if it came down in the very next windstorm. I don’t know exactly when all the nests got destroyed, or whether there were heron chicks on the nests at the time. I hope that is not the case. I hope that every pair has found a new place to nest. And I know that to be a fact for at least two pair. But I also know it’s much harder to sight a heron now. On three or four occasions I have seen one heron, got a few good photographs also. But, since my return trip in September, I have not yet seen any groups of them, nor have I seen more than one in any particular place. And that’s what I miss most of all: seeing so many of those magnificent birds together in one location.
The heron mating season in this area goes from March until May. That means, somewhere around that time, herons without nests will start building new ones, and finding mates, if they are young. It will be around five months before I will know if any of the remaining trees can securely hold a heron’s nest. It is possible that no herons will return to that devastated site. I hope they do.
I have tried to imagine what it would take to repopulate that area with trees herons could use for nesting. Part of the problem stems from the fact that those trees were already there, tall, and thriving, before the beaver ponds were built. Almost every one of those trees was already dead, drowned by pond water. It was only a matter of time before they succumbed to nature. To replace those trees would require some sort of transplanted trees that could grow in the beaver pond water. I’m no tree expert, but I don’t see that happening in my lifetime, and probably never.
Nature gave the park a wonderful thing, a thing that was there long before I saw it. And then nature took it away. Those trees grew up on a floodplain, part of which became permanently flooded by the erection of beaver dams. What happened was destined to happen someday. To see the beauty of nature and the destruction of nature unfold in time, all in one place, has been a moving and emotional experience.
I have lost something that was especially important to me. And I will not be getting it back. There is still plenty of reasons to visit the park, the photos that I have posted should be indication of that. But a siege of herons is something I did not know existed until I saw it for the first time in those tall trees in the middle of the beaver ponds at Lake Conestee Nature Preserve. I am sad they are gone. But I am glad I was there to see them when they were at their peak, dead trees bursting with life, standing there proudly as they entertain me and many other folks who were fascinated by the antics of those big beautiful birds.
Links to photos (some photos are heavily cropped and are soft):
Wide view of beaver ponds and trees with heron nests - May 2012 - when many trees were still alive and thriving - too far away to see birds or nests
Siege of herons, partial view - Feb 2018 - many nests and birds present
Heron with twig in pink sky - Mar 2017 - early in the mating season
Heron pair builds new nest - Feb 2016 - they do appear to float as they approach the nest