Nesting of Grey Herons

Greetings, friends.
I hope my readers will remember my trip to Kaliningrad (East Prussia) in May of this year. It was a great time, and during this trip I visited the bird paradise. That's what I call the Curonian Spit now.
One of the places where we stopped was Lake Chaika. We were supposed to meet swans here, even though the lake is called Chaika. But we didn't see any swans, and neither did the seagulls. Apparently, the timing was so coincidental that they weren't there. But I saw a lot of big birds in the distance. And they turned out to be grey herons.

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Why is there a cross on the lake? It is called the Amber Cross. It marks the place where a hole was made in the bottom of the lake for diving into the ice hole for Epiphany in winter. The lake is shallow, and a depression was made in this place so that you could dive into the hole at Epiphany. But that's another story. At first, I thought that the cross marked the place where people died.

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It was behind the cross in the reeds that I saw the heron. But it was difficult to see her with the naked eye. My 600mm long lens camera helped me with this.

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While I was looking at the heron standing in the reeds, another bird flew low over the water and also headed towards the reeds.

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3 grey herons at the same time in one place. I've never seen anything like this before. There were 2 more herons behind the scenes, one of them went behind the reeds, and the second flew away along the reeds to the right.

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Back in the spring of this year, I was sure that herons were building nests for their offspring in the reeds. I forgot where I got the information that herons nest in trees. I thought that such big birds couldn't sit on tree branches. But watching the herons on this lake, I saw them perch on the branches and disappear into the green canopy of trees. I realized that they were building nests there. They look like ancient pterodactyls at this time. Friends, I hope that you see a bird against the background of trees.
In reality, the distance from the forest to me was large, and it was very difficult to take a high-quality photo of a flying bird at such a distance, holding a camera in my hands.
I wanted to tell you and show you exactly this moment.

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