Tawny Owls and Grey Herons

With the bird breeding season well underway the members of the Swaledale Ringing Team are extremely busy. Owl boxes have been checked and although the news is better than last year, the results are still disappointing. 

Inside some nests food was plentiful. Two of these chicks had already hatched an a third egg was just beginning to hatch as can be seen here!

Later on the same day, older chicks were found in a new box that has been kindly donated by the Hawk and Owl Trust. They were just big enough to ring and were in 'fine fettle'!

A Heron chick was also ringed thanks to Sean Stockdale from Yorkshire Tree Specialists who climbed a conifer tree to the nest. The chick was carefully lowered to the ground to be ringed and then was put safely back in it's tree top abode! 

Each year any information about breeding Grey Herons on the MOD land in Catterick is sent to the BTO as part of the Heronries Census. The aim of this longstanding project is to collect counts of 'apparently occupied nests' (aon) of herons, egrets and other colonial waterbirds from as many heronries as possible in the United Kingdom each year.  Its Grey Heron data represent the longest-running monitoring data set for any breeding bird in the world.