Busy Herons

Bird On! Diary
15th April 1996

April is the month when most Heron eggs hatch. The parent birds feed the young on tiny fish to start with. Gradually they increase the size of the fish until, near fledging, they bring in foot long monsters. The foraging flights can be longer than 10 miles and the parent partly digests the food before regurgitating it for the young.

Herons are usually colonial. The larger colonies, or heronries, number 50 to 100 nests. A few birds are solitary nesters and their new sites eventually develop into thriving colonies. Sites of colonies can be very traditional; often local place names show that Herons have nested in the area for centuries.