Great Blue Heron Sounds and Calls: A Guide to the "Frawnk"

Great Blue Herons are mostly silent birds — stealth is their hunting strategy — but when they do vocalize, the sound is unmistakable: a harsh, hoarse, almost prehistoric squawk that has convinced more than a few listeners they've heard a dinosaur.12 The voice most people know is the alarm squawk given when a heron is flushed from a shoreline; at breeding colonies, though, the birds are remarkably chatty, with a documented vocabulary of seven distinct calls.3

The seven-call vocal array

Call What it sounds like When it's used
Frawnk A rapid, drawn-out squawk averaging ~20 seconds Alarm and aggression toward other herons, day or night; the source of the New England nickname "Crank"3
Go-go-go A series of clucks First response to a slowly building disturbance, at feeding sites and colonies; escalates to Frawnk if the threat continues3
Awk A startling scream, ~2.3 seconds Extreme disturbance, e.g., a predator attack3
Gooo Resembles the bleat of a calf Ends the "Full Forward" courtship display3
Ee A two-segment call Various social situations, mostly in flight, day and night3
Roh-roh-roh A ~3.6-second series of squawks Advertises ownership of a feeding territory; also given arriving at the nest — likely functions in mate recognition3
Landing call Similar to Roh-roh-roh Given when arriving at the nest; mate recognition3

Descriptions follow Birds of the World (Vennesland & Butler 2020), drawing on R. D. Bayer's colony studies. Calls intergrade and vary considerably between individuals.3

How to hear them

The most reliable places to hear Great Blue Herons:

  1. Flush one accidentally (you will): the departing frawnk is the everyday heron sound of North American waterways.2
  2. Visit a heronry in breeding season: colonies are loud with greeting squawks, bill-clattering, and the "che-che-che" of chicks (which deepens to "grr-grr-grr" as they grow).45
  3. Online: the Cornell Lab's Macaulay Library hosts extensive recordings, and the All About Birds sounds page features the go-go-go building into a full frawnk.6

Beyond the voice

Herons also communicate mechanically: both sexes snap their bill tips together ("bill-clappering") during territorial and pair-bond displays, a sound that carries well across a colony.7 Chicks add their own soundtrack — a loud clacking when begging for food, audible in the nest-cam era to millions of viewers.8

  1. https://www.almanac.com/bird-sounds-great-blue-heron — The Old Farmer's Almanac: Bird Sounds, Great Blue Heron ↩

  2. https://wildadirondacks.org/adirondack-birds-great-blue-heron-ardea-herodias.html — Birds of the Adirondacks: Vocalization ↩↩

  3. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/grbher3/cur/sounds — Birds of the World: Sounds and Vocal Behavior ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  4. https://ccbirdalliance.org/february-is-gbh-nesting-time/ — Columbia Basin Bird Alliance: colony soundscape observations ↩

  5. https://www.ncwildlife.gov/media/1885/open — NC Wildlife Resources Commission: call descriptions ↩

  6. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Blue_Heron/sounds — Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Sounds ↩

  7. https://wildadirondacks.org/adirondack-birds-great-blue-heron-ardea-herodias.html — Birds of the Adirondacks: bill-snapping ↩

  8. https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/95627/file-631106924-pdf/docs/2014_BirdCams_eBook.pdf — Cornell Lab Bird Cams eBook ↩

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