Wednesday, September 1, 2010

the heronry.May 2010

latest  nile birds are on  http://birdinginegypt.blogspot.com/
Another wonderful half day on Banana Island heronry, so many fledglings trying their wings  today also many few day old chicks one of the trees with the nests at eye level the tree is growing from the base of the Nile river bank so I am standing twenty foot up to tree level. so a few of the baby chicks are only maybe 15ft away from the camera,  no need for any more commentary just enjoy the young Little white Egrets and the Cattle egrets chicks.                       click on the photos to enlarge,



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the heronry one week before 22/4/10
As promised I went to the heronry  today and it was  a nice day out  real nice breeze  too cool things down.
I sat down near my usual spot to watch the kingfishers  a bit too windy for them  all they did was perch  and have squabbles with the offspring  i suppose the young did not understand why there was no fish today. and I shall explain  for what I think. The Nile was a bit choppy  and the mud was being churned up making the waters murky  the Kingfishers hover at about 20ft above the water and dive as soon as a fish comes to surface for air. so the kingfisher has to watch it come up. then dive hitting the water at the same time the fish takes air.  now the herons have no such problems. most times they wade in the water or perch on  flotsam. and wait for  a fish to come in striking range like today this Little white egret dived from a perch and caught its prey.
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seeing there are a lot of young Little white egrets about  one might think this fish  was going to feed one of them, It seems the Little white Egret is a cuckoo  from what I saw at the heronry. not only  do the Cattle egrets build the nests    but it seems they sit on the cuckoo's eggs 
this is a large white heron chick  so all three of the White egrets are nesting in this area,
  I saw one or two chicks foraging around on the ground on my way through the  fruit tree grove  so this was a sure indication that the trees of the heronry will be very active .
I have not been to this part before  this is the roof of the pump house that pumps water for the banana island plantation its about 20 ft down to the Nile River and it pumps about 8ft up to the plantation water level this tree in the Nile  has about 50 nests most with chicks  as I clambered down to the entrance of the pump house I was about 6ft away from some of the nests on the top of the tree. I could almost touch the Cattle egrets.
This nest has a white egret  chick.




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