The Story of Walter, the Black Crowned Night Heron

This painting is inspired by a wild bird I got to know while I was working as a zookeeper, affectionately named Walter.

Feeding time at the zoo isn't just exciting for the zoo animals, it is also exciting for wild animals that also call zoos home! We would get bombarded by wild birds when we were trying to feed the zoo's birds, and it was often quite a challenge to make sure that all of the zoo animal food went where it was supposed to! As a bird keeper, we carried food that was of particular interest to wild birds. Black Crowned Night Herons would try and snatch a free snack frequently - except for Walter. Walter was....polite! That is the only word that accurately describes his behavior. While other birds tried to grab at food behind our backs, Walter would patiently wait for us to give him some leftovers. We always knew which one was Walter as he was the only Black Crowned Night Heron that did this! As a result, he definitely got more free fish from us than other birds did! There was also an added benefit for Walter - he had a swollen joint in his leg once that was causing some difficulty for him with walking, and we were able to crate train him and have the zoo vets treat him for his injury. (There was one other Black Crowned Night Heron that learned from Walter and tried to mimic his polite behavior, but never quite pulled it off. We called him Falter - Fake Walter)

My favorite memory of Walter came during a particularly bad hurricane season. Walter disappeared for quite a while, and we were afraid he had not fared well during the storms. But one day, there was a polite bird waiting for his dinner from us, and we knew who it was right away! We called the rest of the bird staff over the radio to come say hi, and we sat with him while he had a nice fish dinner. He eventually flew off....and we never saw him again. I like to think he had found a nice spot to raise a family, and had come back for one day to say goodbye to us.

I never got to take a picture of Walter - this was all well before everyone had cameras on their phones and could take pictures whenever they felt like it. Since I didn't have a photo of him, I decided to do a painting of a Black Crowned Night Heron in his honor.

To learn more about Black Crowned Night Herons, please visit https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-crowned_Night-Heron/id