Nesting Site

Last Saturday morning my garden club met over at the Almond Marsh in Grayslake.  This is a really cool nesting site for the Great Blue Herons.  This site is slowly disintegrating because the tree trunks that are submerged in the wet lands are rotting away.  I have been watching this site for many years and it's so weird to see so few trees and nest.  The forest preserve is trying to keep the birds there with artificial nesting perches.  These perches are like tripods set into the marsh with a board at the top for the birds to build their nests on them.  And guess what?  The herons are building on top of the these platforms.  So, hopefully the future generations of herons in the area will still come to the site to have their young. 

This is a gouache that I just completed of the south/east end of the marsh.   The painting is about 9 x 11 on mat board.