Herons Come Home To Roost

An unlikely group of tenants has claimed a Wooster Square hotspot for a second year in a row, drawing both friends and foes before they fly south later this summer.

That’s the story on DePalma Court between Wooster and Chapel Streets, where a large, twiggy nest is housing five baby yellow-crowned night herons and their mom and dad. Elevated high above the street, the herons have been living there since mid-April, according to several area residents. It’s the second time they’ve made DePalma Court their home; the first was last spring.

Since their arrival earlier this year, the herons have gained a team of Wooster Square cheerleaders who say they are excited for the birds’ second spring and summer in the area. They’re a somewhat special treat so close to downtown. Unlike their ornithological pals the black-crowned night herons, yellow-crowned night herons stick to marshy and shallow tidal areas, where they feed almost exclusively on crustaceans and insects. They build large nests from twigs, housing them near marshes or leafy, strong trees. True to their name, they forage and feed on a constant cycle, working to catch their prey into the night as well as during the day.

As the Long Island Sound has gotten cleaner and food more plentiful, they’ve proliferated in the area, said Ranger Dan Barvir. He said the Wooster Square lodging may be a relatively new one, but there has been for several years ​“a historical colony” of four or five nests by the state Department of Transportation building on Chapel Street, all in the same yellow sycamore. From there, they have easy access to the soft shell and blue crabs and small bugs that they eat and feed their young.

Typically, he said, the Atlantic costal breeders incubate for around 24 days, and then raise their young for 43 days before migrating south, to the tip of Florida and onto the West Indies. In that time, the babies grow from squeaky runts with ​“only a face a mother could love” to self-possessed fishers, capable of flying long distances and foraging in marshes and rivers along the way. 

“If you’re a bird, you can fly to the ocean from Long Wharf pretty easily,” he said, adding that the area has become ​“a pretty good food source” in the past years.

That they have chosen DePalma Court as their temporary home still feels special, said Wooster Street resident Bart Szczarba, who runs the Wooster Square Blossom Blog and jumped into the birding world several years ago. On sun-dappled mornings — he’s noticed that the birds are most active then — he and his wife Cheryl grab their telescope, binoculars, and telephoto lens camera and walk the two minutes from their home to a few steps from the nest. They’ve observed the same breed fishing for food at the Sound School and Long Wharf Nature Preserve in recent weeks. 

“For us, it’s exciting because they’re great birds,” he said. ​“You’re really only going to see it on the East Coast. It’s amazing, not like something you’re going to see every day.

“We’re just so in love with these birds,” added Cheryl, looking through her telescope as she spoke. 

They can’t tell the mother and father apart, they said, but have noticed that the two split labor relatively equally. On Saturdays when the Wooster Square Farmer’s Market is in session, Bart Szczarba said he’s watched one of the parents furiously gather twigs from nearby trees, snapping them off as nearby shoppers spring for their organic kale and apple cider donuts. 

For Szczarba and some of his neighbors, the birds are welcome to stay as long as they like. Just down the street from the Szczarbas, Photographer Paul Duda has found himself slipping out of his Wooster Street studio to photograph the nest. After first noticing mom and dad heron in March — at that point, they were frantically rebuilding their nest before laying eggs in it, he said — he has tried to document the babies as they grow from needy fuzz-balls to young fliers.

He said he sees documenting them as a sort of ritual. Earlier this year, he watched the the two parent herons defend their still-unborn brood from a hawk who has been attacking nests and terrorizing squirrels around Wooster Square. Then, some weeks later, he said he delighted in seeing the babies poke their prehistoric-looking heads from the nest, beaks wide open, nascent crowns standing straight up like mohawks. Since the five have hatched, he said, the parents have been taking turns scavenging for food 24 hours a day.

“To be honest I just like watching ​‘em every year … It’s an interesting way to look at time,” he said.

That was also the case for passers-by on their way to Wooster Square. On her way to play baseball with her young son, Wooster Street resident Kirsten Fulda said that she and her son had first seen the birds several weeks ago, when Duda pointed them out and allowed them to view them through his telephoto lens.

Despite her concern that the nest ​“seems precariously perched” from its place in the branches, she said that the birds were a kind of nice surprise for her. She’s spent time watching them grow with her son.

Pounding the pavement on a weekly route, postal worker Apreia Cooper said the birds hadn’t caught her attention, but didn’t bother her unless they were prone to attack. ​“There’s always chirping and birdsong around here [the Wooster Square neighborhood], and that’s kind of nice,” she said. ​“I don’t think too much of it otherwise. 

Not everyone is pleased about the unexpected guests, who have left a copious pile of white droppings on the street and surrounding cars. Bart Szczarba said a few drivers have reached out to Wooster Square beat cop Ralph Consiglio with complaints about bird feces (“their poops are huge!” Cheryl Szczarba said) on their parked cars. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the poop-dappled area beneath the nest was clear of vehicles. 

The herons declined to comment for the article, one extending its 24-inch wingspan in a ​“talk to the hand” gesture before turning its behind to the reporter.