Mothers Day at the rookery: Chicks chirping on Lady’s Island

Watching a newborn on Mothers Day does something special to your heart, even when mom has a beak and the newborn only a few fuzzy feathers.

My wife and I noted the return of wading birds to a long-dormant Lady’s Island rookery in late March. We decided Sunday was an appropriate day for a return visit, and sure enough, where great egrets once guarded pale-blue eggs, nests brimmed with hatchlings. Many hunkered down to stay out of the mid-afternoon sun. Others raised their heads or even stood in the nest, mouths agape and necks pulsating in rapid respiration that keeps them cool.

We spent a restful hour creeping around the wetland’s edge, counting chicks, and pondering the frailty and utter dependency of newborn life.

We’ve spotted at least two anhinga nests, both of which contained chicks with buffy/pink down. A few nests made by tricolored herons, cattle egrets and snowy egrets also contained chicks, although far more still contained eggs — a sign that activity there is likely to last a while.

A few black-crowned night herons have been spotted in this wetland, too, but I haven’t gotten a good look at their nests. My wife and I also saw white ibises along the periphery, perhaps waiting to swoop in and lay eggs of their own. Ibises often nest with other wading birds, according to the Audubon Field Guide; at both the Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and at Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge, I’ve observed that they seem to nest in the same rookeries after herons and egrets have hatched their broods.

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This story was originally published May 9, 2016 at 1:27 PM with the headline "Mothers Day at the rookery: Chicks chirping on Lady’s Island."