The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-29
HOW ONE MAN BUILT
 GREAT BIRD CITY Started With Eight Young Her0ns and a Swamp HAS 100000 HERONS Many Thousands of Other Wild Fowl E Make Their Home on
 Avery Island in
 Louisiana

I
 of snowy herons and other rare wild fowl
 live and multiply. is the proud achieve
 ment of Edward A McIlhenny of Avery
 Island. Louisiana This spot-it isn't
 really an island. but a hill emerging from
 the miles of semi swamp lands surround ing it--has always been MT. McIlhenny's
 homo. He remembers how the wild fowl
 swarmed there when he was a child and
 remembers the change which followed
 the advent of the plume hunters in 1881. Near my home" writes MT. McIlhenny
 in Country Life in America, there was a
 wet spot of couple of acres between the
 hills. partly covered with willow button
 wood and other water loving trees, marsh
 grasses and ferns About this pond each
 spring a few green herons and bitterns
 nested. had often thought 1t might be possible to induce other water loving birds to make their homes here, and in
 1894. a small dam having been built which
 raised the water level couple of feet, l
 decided to make the experiment in the l hope of saving a few of the snowy herons, which at that time had been al
 most exterminated by plume hunters.
 Tn the spring of 1895, after many days
 of search in the swamps to the east of my home. located two nests of the snowy
 heron containing four young each. These eight young birds took just before they
 were large enough to fly, and having built
 on the edge of the pond a large cage coy-
 cred with woven wire, put the little | herons Into it.
 For the next couple of months spent
 considerable time each day with these | birds, who soon grew to know me and
 showed not the slightest fear, taking their food from my hand, perching on my shoul- ders. head or arms and coming when l called them. I was successful in raising all eight of these birds and kept them confined until the latter part of Novem-
 Der, when I knew by their uneasiness that they wanted to follow their migrating in-
 stincts and leave for the tropical shores | of South America.
 | "So I turned them loose one evening, | expecting them to leave, but, much to my surprise. they were perched in their cage | tho next morning when I went to sec | if they had gone I left the door open and for three days they stayed around ! the pond, sleeping in the cage at night. I | then had the cage pulled down. A couple 1 oe nights later there was light frost, and | in the morning my birds had gone. T was quite sure they would return the next spring to the place where they were raised, and was much gratified on the | 18th of the following March to find four l of my snowy herons sitting In the bushes | where the homo cage had been the year before. Two days later two more came home. making six raised out of the eight, two having either met an untimely death | or followed others of their kind to some other home colony. At first the home corners were very shy. and 1t was several days before I could establish friendly re- latins with them.
 Gradually, however, they regained their old confidence and would let mo como within a few feet of them. A few days after the arrival of the six one disappeared and for the rest of the summer there were only five old birds at the pond. Two pairs of these be- gan building their nests during the Hast days of March, and in due time Eight sturdy youngsters were added to the five old birds. I visited the nests almost daily and before the young ones were strong enough to fly they were as tame as their parents.
 In the fall there were 13 healthy birds to go south on migration; all left on the same night-the 17th of November. The next spring two returned on March 1 20 and six on March 26 On April the first eggs were laid. Five pairs nested. | raising % young. For + years these birds have been protected in the most careful manner Year by year there has been marked increase. not only In the number of snowy herons, now numbering About 2500 pairs but In other herons and water | birds which have been attracted to Will | low Pond. |
 ''The area of the pond has been in- | creased by twice enarging the dam, un- | til now there are about thirty-five acres | of water, in most of which is growing a thick jungle of swamp-loving trees and | .I.r ,1<- ing places for vast army, of birds. As | the snowy herons increased yearly they | attracted to their refuge other herons. First pair of little blue herons were added to the colony and nested in the | spring of 1897. In 1900 three pair of Louis iana herons took up their homes with the protected birds.
 There was no very large increase in the population of our bird town until 1905, when there were about 1000 pairs in all of five varieties of herons nesting in the | preserve. From 1905 to date the yearly in- crease has been great. On May 9, 1908, I | attempted to count the herons coming | into the pond by using a checking ma chine which records by finger pressure. l was able to count with fair accuracy | the birds coming into the pond and pass ing over two stakes set that only | those coming over one-fourth of the cir | cle of the pond could be counted.
 "The count began at 615 when practical | ly no birds were going out, and ended at | ' :15 when it was too dark to see the in- conner at distance. In the two hours counted 4754. As one heron always stays at home to guard the nest while its mate is out for food, and as was counting the incomers only one-fourth the area of the pool. am safe in saying there were fully 10000 adult herons in the pond in the spring of 1908. As the young do not begin to leave the nest before the end of Nav there were no young birds included in this count. From 1908 to date the increase has been very marked. During the spring of 1911 a number of attempts were made to get some sort of an accurate count of the birds, but there were many 1t was | quite impossible. As I spend a portion of each day during the nesting season fin the | bird town, I can of course make a fairly accurate guess on the number nesting I think there were in the spring of 1911 fully 2o,0o0 pairs of herons nesting. and I fully 5000 birds that could not nest as there was no more room for nests Suppose these 10000 pair raised an av-
 craze of three young. This is low, for
 both the Louisiana heron and the little blue heron lay five eggs ordinarily the | little infant mortality: but suppose the l birds nesting and they raised 5000 young and emitting the birds that did not nest
 1t would not be an exaggeration to say that there were 100000 herons in the pond at the end of the nesting season.