lucy wightman

Hull is host to an unusual avian summer visitor whose seasonal home is on top of and deep within the trees. Maybe you have seen it cast its daunting 45-inch shadow in Hull Village while scanning from the dusk sky for fish, crustaceans, reptiles, or insects.

It is the watchful and confident Black-crowned Night Heron, or by its proper name Nycticorax, meaning “night raven,” for its nocturnal hunting habits and caw-like protest noise. Its habitat is found near water on every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

According to the Massachusetts Audubon Society, this heron’s numbers are increasing after the cessation of DDT use and cleaner harbor water. The Black-crowned Night Heron’s wide habitat and higher place on the food chain makes it an indicator of ecosystem health.

“I was just speaking to our ornithologist, who says the closest nesting site of the Black-crowned Night Heron is on Sarah Island in Hingham. There is nothing closer to Hull in our reports or in the bird atlas.”

Resembling a penguin to the layperson’s eyes, it is a stocky bird with a short neck, black bill, gray wings and white underpinnings. Its legs are short and a yellowish pink, and its eyes are like amber red marbles. Gender is hard to discern, the only difference being that the female is slightly smaller.

Arriving sometime in March from their winter homes as far south as Mexico, they unpack to then construct rather primitive-looking nests from chaotically stacked sticks lacking in insulation. There may be as many as a dozen nests in a single tree, as they are colonizing nesters.

Eggs are a pale greenish-blue and heron clutches number anywhere from three to five. The young get equal care from both parents; in fact, the generous heron has been known to brood chicks not even of their ilk. Chicks are fed a delectable mixture of partially digested frogs, fish, and crabs, and make their fledgling appearances after about six weeks. Many fall to their early demise at two or three weeks old when they begin to climb about the nest, unable to fly. In the middle of July, the brooding colonies disperse and take to their seaside roosting lookouts for ample feeding opportunities. By October, the industrious herons start heading south again.