Sunday, February 01, 2009

Rookery in the Metropolis

It's 40 years since Grey Herons first successfully reared young in London's Regent's Park. This weekend the colony of 25+ pairs looked to be doing just fine: nest building, mutual preening, mating, fighting.... all manner of behaviour could be observed. At this time of year the adult birds are also looking their best with blue lores and an intense pink-red bill base. With some blue sky and a breeze in the right direction the conditions were good for capturing some nest-building birds in flight.

4 comments:

Warren Baker said...

Wow! Fraser, I'll have to look at herons a little more closely from now on.

Anonymous said...

Excellent shots. They seem to be quite busy.

Anonymous said...

Rookery is a general term for a colony of breeding animals , inc. seals &Pteraudaustro (! thanks , Wikipedia ) but why not use Heronry? The last Rookery in London , Mark Cocker reckons was in Chancery Lane about 1916 .
Great photos ; you encourage me to try & see them asap.
J.M.MacDonald .

Fraser Simpson said...

Thanks. There should be a lot juveniles standing around the banks now.

I've probably used 'heronry' in a previous post and like the 'rookery' term for a bit of variation.

I have Cocker's BB - an excellent source of anecdotes.

All the best,
Fraser