Southern Colour Ringing Group

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First visit to Netherhall to count the Heron colony for 2023 showed a sharp decline in pairs down from 28 last year to only 17  this year. It could be the poor condition of the trees or alternatively the cold and we weather which may have also held things up. Only two nests had large young and several were too small to ring or had eggs only. Six young were ringed and a good training session with some new people visiting the colony at Netherhall.

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

 A belated page on the 2021 Walthamstow Egret ringing sesson.

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 0 0
Little Egret 19 19

We visited the Walthamstow colony today to count nests and ring a sample of birds.

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 5 5
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

2020 year totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 0 0
Little Egret 11 7

2021 year totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 31 31
Little Egret 19 19

2022 year totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 14 14
Little Egret 18 18

2023 year totals

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

Grand totals

Species Ringed Colour ringed
Grey Heron 244 96
Little Egret 184 164

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