FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Kuttawa heronry nest count

[Brainard.Palmer-Ball@xxxxxx]

Week before last, U.S. Army Corps Ranger Jon Summers, Tom Fusco, and I made
an attempt to count the egret/heron nests on the Lake Barkley island near
the Old Kuttawa Rec Area.  I did not want to make an attempt to count the
nests during the breeding season because many are so low to the ground that
disturbance is certain. So we waited until all of the nesting and roosting
birds has departed for the season, and hoped that a fairly accurate count
could be achieved.  

Between the three of us counting individually and marking trees that had
been counted with small pieces of flagging, we obtained a staggering count
-- at least to me -- of 1475 nests!  While it is possible that some of the
nests we counted were not used, I actually think that the count may have
been higher than this because it appeared that some nests were gone,
possibly nests from early attempts that were taken apart by later nesting
birds that needed sticks for nesting material (anyone who has watched the
birds out there fight over sticks and rob each others nests knows that
nesting material is at a premium!).  

We counted a few nests that had blown out onto the ground late in the season
as active, but we only counted fairly substantial looking nests in the trees
(not partial nests).  With the protracted nature of the Cattle Egret nesting
season (early May to early September), a total count of active nests is
probably unattainable in any given year, but our count is probably fairly
accurate. I am even more certain now that it would be impossible to get an
accurate count of nests during the height of the breeding season without
causing way too much disturbance.

The distribution of the nests is amazing, with clusters of 2-6 in many of
the smaller trees on the island; there was even one nest perched within the
sturdy branches of a pokeweed, about 18 inches above the ground! Shame on
these birds if a raccoon or coyote ever gets out there, or if the water
level ever goes 6-8 feet over summer pool!

Tom had circled the island by boat a number of times this summer taking some
wonderful photographs of the nesting birds (a few of which will appear in
the November issue of The Ky Warbler) and his impression of the relative
numbers of each species is roughly similar to mine -- most all of the nests
belonged to Cattle Egrets, with some dozens of Black-crowned Night-Herons,
and lesser numbers of Little Blues, with a few Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets
in the mix (no nests of the latter two were actually observed this year,
just small numbers of birds).  

Thanks go to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who did post the island as
off limits to hunting in early September; there were no reports of
disturbance to the birds as far as I am aware.

bpb, Louisville
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