More Herons

Having had a very good haul of 23 Grey Heron chicks last Saturday in what was an extra visit, we embarked on what in effect was our first 'planned' visit this morning.
Two teams of three ( the Old Uns and the Young Uns) were able to quickly get on with the job as those nests with chicks too small last week had been marked. After a very short stay on the island of under 40 minutes we had ringed another 18 chicks making the total so far this year of 41.
We are very pleased with this, but we will need to make yet another visit in around two and a half weeks because there are still about six nests with eggs/eggs and newly hatched chicks/newly hatched chicks.
One nest in particular will be fascinating to keep an eye on. There are 5 eggs and 2 newly hatched chicks in it!! How many will hatch? How many will they manage to raise to fledging? The good news is that the weather is warming up so the parents will need to spend less time brooding the chicks and more time catching food for them. Watch this space for more news.

Back to the future

Gailey reservoir is owned by the Canal and Rivers Trust (CRT) and leased to Gailey Sailing Club, both of whom have been very helpful in allowing Belvide Ringers to re-establish the ringing of the herons on the lower pool island. This heronry is one of the longest studied in Britain but sadly, for various reasons, hasn't figured in the BTO ringing scheme for a few years.

We wanted to get things going again and we have several ideas for future developments once we have finished this year's breeding season.

Scope views from the shore suggested that the chicks were of very different ages--with two fully fledged a couple of weeks ago--these eggs must have been laid in January!! Our original plans were to make a first visit on Sunday 14th, but given that we could see some large chicks we decided to visit today to both ring suitable chicks and assess things for the 14th.

Our boatman ( last year's commodore), Tim ferried us across in two teams and we allowed ourselves a maximum of one hour to do what we could.

All aboard-----

 

 

and off we go!

 





As it turned out, we moved very quickly and calmly several of us rekindling some of our skills from visits to this site over many previous years. We were finished in 40 minutes.  As expected, nest varied from eggs to almost fully fledged chicks so our visit was justified. We ringed 23 chicks and there looked to be at least as many which will be ready for our visit on 14th. Most of the adults were back on the nests by the time we had got back to the shore. If possible we will also try a visit in a few weeks time when those still on eggs should be ready.

 

 

Paul up a tree passing the chick to---

 

Scott who ringed it, just about big enough.

 

Have a look after the 14th to see how the second visit went. A big thank you to the team, Tim from the club and Paul from CRT