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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