Beloved Blue Heron From Maine Completes 2,130-Mile Flight Over Open Ocean

Mother Nature is certainly most impressive.

Just imagine flying for 40 hours non-stop over the open ocean on a journey that takes you between New Brunswick, Canada, and Bermuda. Once you get to Bermuda, you rest three days, before stretching your wings and doing it again for another 30-hour flight to the Bahamas.

Much to the delight of bird lovers and Facebook followers, that's exactly what a Great Blue Heron passionately named "Harper" did just recently. That's what she's been doing since the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife began monitoring the big bird back in 2019.

Harper, along with her cohorts Cornelia and Ragged Richard, has been the focus of a Facebook group called the Heron Observation Network of Maine for a couple of years now, ever since they were fitted with solar-powered GPS devices that show their whereabouts.

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Since Harper was tagged in the Maine town of Harpswell in 2019 she has summered in New Brunswick. The GPS tells us that she left Canada to migrate south on her 7-day journey on October 2, and then flew 40 hours non-stop while battling an eastward wind all the way to Bermuda. Harper's speed averaged almost 30 mph and at times reached 46 mph at an average altitude of 492 feet.

Harper then decided to hang out in the wetlands in Bermuda for three days, eating a few fish and maybe a snake or two, before then departing for the Bahamas, another 30-hour flight away.

She must have wanted to get the journey over with, because she only spent 8 hours in the Bahamas before taking flight once again on October 9 for Guajaca Uno, Cuba, her final destination, some 2,130 miles from where she began.