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| Grey Heron - © Daren Chapman |
After completing the heronries count last week we
have discovered a total of 40 grey heron nests on the Reserve. This is the
greatest number of grey heron nests ever to be recorded at Attenborough and the
site has now become the largest active heronry in Nottinghamshire!
The Attenborough heronry was first established in
2007 following the collapse of the historic 'Brandshill Wood Heronry' –
adjacent to the A453 (that had peaked in the 90's with 70 nests present). It
was at the start of the 2007 breeding season that an unknown disturbance event
displaced the herons from their traditional nesting site and caused the birds
to relocate along the Trent
Valley. In the years
since, the nests had been rather scattered along the Trent, recorded as far
away as Highfield’s Park on University Boulevard.
It is only in the last couple of years that the
herons have formed a more typical 'heronry' on the Attenborough Nature Reserve
with around 30 of the total number of nests recorded this year being situated
in the Wet Marsh area of Tween Pond. Outlying nests have been counted on Main
Pond, nearby the main colony.
As a top predator in the freshwater foodchain, grey
herons can only thrive if there is an abundance of prey. Monitoring their
numbers through the Heronries Census at Attenborough provides us with a
valuable indicator of the quality of the wetland habitat on the Reserve.
The data gathered from the Heronries census is sent
to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) each year to be added to their
national survey data. The BTO’s Heronries Census began in 1928 and was
originally intended to only last for one year. Still going strong and carried
out annually since then, the Grey Heron data collected through the census represent
the longest-running monitoring data set for any breeding bird in the world!
Visitors to the Reserve can get fantastic views of
one of the islands within the heronry, containing three heron nests (and their
chicks), from the barge channel bridge on Main Path. If you look closely you
might even notice a fourth heron's nest in the tree - being used by a female
mallard to incubate her eggs!
