Last year my part of Saskatchewan was under water. A lot of moisture-laden snow over the previous Winter and unrelenting heavy rains all Spring caused serious flooding. Not to make light of the destruction caused, there is one huge benefit to all this water - every bit of low-lying land is now slough/marsh/wetland/small shallow lake. It is a wading bird and bird-watcher paradise.
This is one of hundreds of bluffs of trees that have been drowned. Some enterprising Great Blue Herons, Double-crested Cormorants, Black-crowned Night-Herons, and apparently, Cattle Egrets and Great Egrets realized these leafless, now-isolated-by-water trees were a terrific place to build nests and establish a roost.
One of our local birders found this nesting colony last week.
We've got Cattle Egrets and Great Egrets in unprecedented numbers. In previous years, we might see one or two of each. It is the mixed-grass (usually hot & dry) prairies, after all and in the past, by August sloughs are usually dried up or close to it.
Not in the photo but roosting are Cattle Egrets (at least 30 have been counted), Great Egrets (10-12), Black-crowned Night-Herons. These probably nested there as well.
This is one of hundreds of bluffs of trees that have been drowned. Some enterprising Great Blue Herons, Double-crested Cormorants, Black-crowned Night-Herons, and apparently, Cattle Egrets and Great Egrets realized these leafless, now-isolated-by-water trees were a terrific place to build nests and establish a roost.
One of our local birders found this nesting colony last week.
We've got Cattle Egrets and Great Egrets in unprecedented numbers. In previous years, we might see one or two of each. It is the mixed-grass (usually hot & dry) prairies, after all and in the past, by August sloughs are usually dried up or close to it.
Not in the photo but roosting are Cattle Egrets (at least 30 have been counted), Great Egrets (10-12), Black-crowned Night-Herons. These probably nested there as well.
Great shots to depict the area Kathy. We saw only 10 Great Egrets - two off by themselves and eight in a grouping a little to the right. Also 10 Cattle Egrets were roosting in the tree bluff to the left of your photo that day and lots across the road mixing with the cattle. It is nice to have some good birding finds in the SE corner this year. Usually it's us travelling all over the province to see things like this eh! Thanks for sharing. Val
ReplyDeleteThanks, Val. I agree. It is wonderful to have some hot-spot birding locations down here, within a short drive from our places. I am already looking forward to checking this location daily come Spring. It will be fun to see what returns and when. And, Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
DeleteHow neat to see all the shorebirds. We see very few in the karst regioun of S.E. Minn. There weren't many sloughs to begin with and the demands of modern agricultre seem to have required them all to be drained. Of what it the need for gasoline (ethanol) for our gas guzzlers...
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delay in replying...this colony has been amazing. Fun to watch the 'unusual egrets'. And yes, all the sloughs were drained here too, except that with the flooding last year, Ma Nature restored some balance. What has been happening here the past year or two (same as in NoDak) is that corn has become one of the big crops - for ethanol. Our Gov'ts are in the process of selling off the crownlands (publically owned) community pastures - expect much of that will be corn fields surrounding oil well pumps before too long. The oil wells are being drilled as we speak.
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