Focus on...Little Egret

A recent episode of the BBC's Countryfile featured Hertfordshire's River Mimram as part of a segment on chalk streams. During the piece a colour ringed Little Egret - '9/9' - made an appearance.

This bird was ringed at HMWT's Lemsford Springs as an adult on 3 November 2015 and has been re-sighted on 513 days since then making him the 'most observed' Herts ringed Little Egret!  

Most of the re-sightings have been around Lemsford Springs but also quite a few have been received from the Hertford area between April and June suggesting he may be breeding at the Amwell NR colony. 

Quite a local celebrity!
 

Here are a few other Hertfordshire Little Egret facts & figures:

The Third Herts Autumn Garden Vismig Watch 2022

Autumn is fast approaching (faster than ever it seems this year!) and with that the chance for a renewed interest in the birds passing through our gardens.  Die-hard garden listers will know that autumn perhaps brings the best chance of something unusual appearing in or over our gardens.

Visible migration or ‘vismig’ for short describes the observed movement of birds from summer breeding grounds to wintering grounds all across Britain and that includes our gardens too.  Some of this movement may just be regional while other birds travel across continents.  Regularly watching your garden and the skies above it through the autumn (maybe an hour first thing or in the evening) will reveal this movement happening before our very eyes.

If you are keen to join the regular ‘garden watchers’ then add yourself to the Googlesheet and record your daily sightings throughout the autumn.  You can watch as little or as much as you like but you’ll be surprised at what passes through your garden at this time of year.

Swift Awareness Week 2022: an update from two local Swift groups

Swift Awareness Week runs from 2nd to 10th July this year, and this article highlights the ongoing work of two Swift groups to help conserve Swifts in the county, as well as details of a talk taking place in Hertford

Hertford Swift Group have been particularly active, erecting over two hundred swift nest boxes on houses and other buildings in the town.  They have also been giving talks and organising swift walks to raise awareness of swifts locally.

Hertfordshire Mute Swan Breeding Survey 2022

Update 23rd June : breeding at 43 sites.  

We now have good numbers of cygnet records in addition to the nests found earlier this year.  Please check the map for further details – thank you for all of the records, and please keep looking, there are sites still to be checked.  (In addition to the 43, the map includes 5 out of county sites which are very close to the Hertfordshire boundary).

 

The Herts Bird Club is organising a Mute Swan breeding survey this year, in the hope that we can build a complete picture of the breeding status of this iconic species in the county

The last Hertfordshire survey was 20 years ago in 2002 and recorded 62 nests, of which 41 produced broods of cygnets. 

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