Southern Colour Ringing Group

27 March 2021

We took a very small team out to count the Heron colony on Netherhall and see if there were some early chicks to ring. A slick operation which we put back an hour due to the chilly temperatures first thing. All went well with 25 active nests and a sample of 8 Herons ringed and colour ringed. As with Walthamstow there are already some early Egrets getting going and one nest with five eggs already.

24 March 2021

Under the Governement guidance that scientific monitoring can continue we took a small team to undertake the survey of Herons at Walthamstow Wetlands today. A good session with 32 active nests counted and a sample of 16 young ringed all colour ringed.

Thanks to the team at Walthamstow for organising the socialy distanced canoes to undertake the session.

22 May 2020

Thanks to some very unsavory charachters who spent a night out on Heron Island at Glen Faba we wanted to go out and check to see if any wildlife crime had been committed so myself and one ranger from the Park took the large boat (enabling us to stay 2m apart!) out to the island to see if there was any damage. Fortunately there was no damage and most of the Herons had fledged. The other really good news is that there were at least 10 pairs of Little Egret at varying stages and I was able in the permitted time to ring three broods. Unfortunately 4 out of the 11 birds were too small to take colour rings and were ringed abouve the tarsus with a metal ring only.

It is unlikely that we will be able to make a visit to the colony at Walthamstow this year so this may be the only birds we ring this year.