Southern Colour Ringing Group

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Little Egret Chicks in Nest   Verulamium Lake 30 May 2015

A quick trip out to Netherhall to get Egrets was a little dissapointing with only one nest ready. Another with young that were still too small and the rest still eggs means the Egrets are clearly much later this year than usual and we will consider making one last trip to see if we can cover another nest or two.

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 1 1
Little Egret 3 3

08 RMs heron

A successful trip to the Heron island at Nethherhall with another seven Grey Herons colour ringed. Unfortunately the Egret nests which we hoped would be ready all had either young that were too small or still eggs. It looks like the cold weather has put them back a couple of weeks. Clearly the Grey Herons had already started so so pushed through the cold weather and there are several fledged nests already from this colony. We will plan a trip out at the end of next week to try and get some Egrets.

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 7 7
Little Egret 0 0

A team of ten made the first visit to Glen Faba at Netherhall to count and ring Herons for 2018. We thought the poor weather might have delayed things and were not sure if we would have much to ring. We were however surpised to find there were nests with nearly full size young already. Five broods were ringed and one brood was not accesible. A few nests had eggs and a final count of 31 active nests was recorded. Three or four Egret nests were noted two with eggs. A final total of 12 Grey Herons were ringed and all were colour ringed our first activity colour ringing Grey Herons. The trip was carried out in perfect weather and we were off the island in just over an hour. Thanks to all the team for a great effort to ring this excellent sample of young.

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 12 12
Little Egret 0 0

Methods

The Southern Colour Ringing Group rings Grey Heron and Little Egret pulli (young in the nest) at two sites in the Lee Valley – Netherhall and Walthamstow Wetlands.

Nests are climbed up to and young removed to ring. We also fit colour rings; Heron (White with black letters and a three digit code) and Egrets (orange on the left leg and black or green on the right leg) which allows the birds to be relocated without needing to be recaptured. There are many more bird-watchers looking for colour-ringed birds, so this greatly improves our chances of understanding the movements of the birds from the Lee Valley.

If you see a bird with one of our colour rings, please use the submission form or send details (ring-code, date, location, species) to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Ringing totals

2015 year totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 12 0
Little Egret 6 6

2016 year totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 13 0
Little Egret 14 14

2017 year totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 16 0
Little Egret 9 9

2018 year totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 20 20
Little Egret 3 3

Grand totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 165 20
Little Egret 61 61

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