It is possible that it was the increase in human foot traffic that led to nest abandonment. This is partly the fault of the road, partly the fault of the web site.
So the creation of the web site could have had, all in all, a negative impact on the heron population. Would the road have been created so far ahead of construction had there not been signs that people were watching what happened to this parcel?
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2 comments:
I’m enjoying your blog. Reading only a portion of your blog brings back memories of my ornithology professor. He was quick to point out misused ornithological terms like the use of the term “rookery,” to describe a “heronry.”
A rookery is a colony of breeding rooks. Rooks belong to the family Corvidae which includes such birds as crows, ravens, jays, magpies, and nutcrackers. Although we have a wonderful variety of corvids in North America, we do not have any rooks. Their range is limited primarily to Europe. Great Blue Herons belong to the family Ardeidae and are quite different in many ways from corvids.
I encourage you to embrace the term "heronry" on your blog to describe a colony of nesting herons. The term is more appropriate because it denotes the actual species that is nesting, and the term also has implications for habitat requirements. Herons are dependent on adjacent wetlands and shorelines for forage and fledging habitat. Although crows, jays, and ravens also use shorelines for foraging around Olympia, their habitat requirements are generalized and are not necessarily dependent on water bodies.
You are likely familiar with the fact that crows and scrub jays thrive in urban environments like West Olympia. One aspect of declining heron productivity you could explore is the abundance of corvids in West Olympia. Crows and jays (and squirrels) are very skilled nest predators. They likely have just as much influence in negatively affecting heron productivity than a pending residential development, and studies show that habitat fragmentation and nest predation are positively correlated because of the creation of habitat that edge specialists, like crows, thrive in.
I don’t think herons would be too happy if a “rookery” moved into the neighborhood.
Keep on blogging.
No, sorry, Paul, my dictionary (Webster's third internation) lists as the second meaning of rookery: a breeding ground or common haunt of other gregarious bird (such as penguins, herons...)
Ornithology class for me was thirty years ago, and I hoped I wasn't misremembering. Heronry is more accurate, and a prettier word, but one can use rookery with impunity too.
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