Manawagonish island 'looks like it has been through a nuclear war'

At one time, Manawagonish Island was green and wild, and great blue* herons built sturdy nests out of sticks high up in the fir and spruce. There were 44 pairs raising chicks on the rocky refuge kissed by the Fundy tides a little more than a mile off the coast of Saint John.

All but a handful of the tall, spindly birds are gone now, and so are the trees they relied upon, killed by a torrent of waste deposited by tens of thousands of sea birds. Colonies of cormorants and gulls nest in the scrub and the crags, but the heron have pretty much abandoned this historical breeding ground just offshore of the Irving Nature Park.

"We have a picture of herons nesting on the island in 1963, and it was quite lush looking," Margo Sheppard, the executive director of The Nature Trust of New Brunswick, said late Monday as she stood on a wharf in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge. "But now, it looks like a moonscape. It looks like it has been through a nuclear war."

Sheppard describes Manawagonish Island as an interesting, grisly place of life and death, a place where the carcasses of gull and cormorant chicks litter the ground. And while there is nothing that can be done about natural attrition, Sheppard and other members of The Nature Trust are working hard to bring the herons back to a historical breeding ground.

"This isn't the only spot for them to breed in New Brunswick, but it is right off Saint's Rest Marsh where they can feed and hang out, and the land is protected so there are relatively few disruptions,'' said Laura Minich, an ornithologist from Virginia who did her masters at the University of New Brunswick and now lives in Fredericton. "It is ideal." On Monday, a group of volunteers led by Sheppard and Minich placed 20 nesting platforms on Manawagonish Island, one of the 26 preserves that are managed by the province-wide land trust. Nesting platforms for herons have been used in other places where colonies have decreased due to dying forests, but these are the first to be erected in New Brunswick.

"I think it's important to be good stewards of the land we have, and of the land and the plants and animals that depend on it,'' said Minich, the manager of the platform project. "Years ago, the herons could go from one island to another island or a forest site, but they can't do that anymore.

"There aren't enough big trees."

The platforms, which are triangular-shaped, are placed at intervals on poles made of pine that are 22 feet tall. There are four platforms to a pole, five poles in all. Lumber and hardware for the project was donated by Marwood Ltd. of Fredericton and J.D. Irving, Limited, of Saint John.

Construction was done by Keith Robertson, a carpenter from Fredericton.

"He wouldn't take any money for his work," Minich said. "He said he was doing it for the herons." Donations from the Evergreen Foundation of Toronto and from the family of Will Astle, a New Yorker who visited Manawagonish Island many times to watch sea birds, helped pay for the cost of the project. Sheppard and Minich hoisted one of the poles in the back yard of Sheppard's home in Fredericton last week for practice. Minich climbed the pole with a drill in hand.

"We learned how not to do it,'' Minich said.

On Monday, a helicopter was hired and the 22-foot poles were flown out to the island, one at a time, dangling underneath. "It was quite an impressive sight," Minich said. "I didn't believe that it would work until I saw it in the air."

A group of about a dozen volunteers accompanied Sheppard and Minich out to the island aboard a chartered boat, and worked from morning until nearly dark. Two linesmen from Saint John Energy donated their time and scampered up and down the poles making sure the platforms were snugly in place.

Now, Sheppard and Minich will wait until spring and hope that herons begin nesting on the platforms. That will bring them great satisfaction after shouldering much of the work in the project alone.

The women kayaked out to Manawagonish Island several times, about 40 minutes each way, while putting the project together. They paddled out and back because they couldn't find anyone with a boat who would help.

"We hit roadblock after roadblock and finally got so mad that we decided that we would do this come hell or high water,'' Sheppard said as she stood on the wharf, bracing against an icy breeze.

All in all, it was worth it.

A peregrine falcon circled overhead as the platforms were being put in place.

"I'm satisfied because this project has been in the thought process for more than 10 years,'' Minich said. "There has been some level of consciousness about it for a decade.

"I guess now we finally firmed up our resolve and got it done." Hopefully, thee herons will show their thanks and return in pairs to Manawagonish Island. And hopefully, they will treat Minich with more respect than the gulls, which are territorial and guard their nests.

"Gulls have made me bleed,'' she said.

Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor of the Telegraph-Journal. He can be reached at martyklinkenberg@hotmail.com.

*changed from original article from great white heron to great blue herons