Seeing a heron
Seeing a heron or an egret today is ordinary along American shores, but a century ago egrets were nearly wiped out for hat plumes. Their return, won by women who refused to wear feathers, puts a price tag on fashion.
What it may mean
In the late 1800s, the long white breeding plumes of egrets were prized above almost any other feather by the hat trade. Hunters shot the birds at their nesting colonies, leaving the chicks to starve, and egrets vanished from much of the United States. In 1896, two Boston women, Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall, organized friends to refuse plumed hats, and their circle became the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Laws followed, and the great egret, now the emblem of the National Audubon Society, recovered. Every white egret wading in a roadside ditch is part of that comeback. Your own fashions and habits carry costs out of sight too, and some might be worth refusing. Herons have been blessings, omens and secret helpers in different lands, and egrets carry their own modern story.
Depending on how you saw it
A great blue heron flying overhead
A heron in flight folds its neck into an S and trails its legs, beating slowly and steadily. Cranes, often confused with herons, fly with necks stretched straight. Which two things in your life look alike until you watch how they move?
A white egret with long plumes in spring
In breeding season, great egrets grow lacy plumes on their backs, the very feathers that once filled hat shops. Seeing them on a living bird is the point of the old fight. What do you admire more now that you see it in its proper place?
A heron at a city pond or a ditch
Herons and egrets now hunt in retention ponds, canals and flooded fields near highways. Protected birds have learned to live close to people. What did protection make possible in your life that seemed out of reach before?
Herons nesting together in a colony
Herons and egrets nest in noisy colonies, sometimes dozens of nests in a few trees, which is why plume hunters found them so easy to shoot. Living together makes them strong and vulnerable at once. Where does being part of a group protect you, and where does it expose you?
Why it happens in nature
Herons and egrets belong to the same family; egrets are largely white herons. Late nineteenth-century demand for egret plumes in women's hats drove a massive slaughter at nesting colonies. Boycotts by Audubon societies and federal laws, including a 1918 treaty act protecting migratory birds, saved them, and great egrets and other herons recovered across North America.
What folk beliefs say
Ancient Egypt
In ancient Egypt, the heron was said to have brought blessings and abundance to all.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 643. View the page
China
The Chinese held that keeping an egret attracted good fortune.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 626. View the page
India
In India, a heron perching on a house was considered very unlucky, as one of those living there was expected to die.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 643. View the page
To reflect on
Which of your habits costs more somewhere out of sight than it is worth to you?