Rookery monitoring (1 Viewer)

gareth_blockley · Apr 7, 2012

Afternoon,

I have a Rookery on my local patch and would like some tips on how to successfully count the nests / monitor breeding success without disturbing them. I have read mid-april is the best time to do a count of active nests.
The Rookery is in mixed plantation (mainly pine and alder) with most of the nests in the pine trees and therefore actually quite hard to see if they are active or not. If I walk underneath the nests all the birds flush and I can't actually see which nests are active. There is no vantage point that I can use to see the nests from outside of the wood.
So, anyone have any tips please?

Cheers
Gareth

Simon Taylor · Apr 7, 2012

gareth_blockley said:
Afternoon,

I have a Rookery on my local patch and would like some tips on how to successfully count the nests / monitor breeding success without disturbing them. I have read mid-april is the best time to do a count of active nests.
The Rookery is in mixed plantation (mainly pine and alder) with most of the nests in the pine trees and therefore actually quite hard to see if they are active or not. If I walk underneath the nests all the birds flush and I can't actually see which nests are active. There is no vantage point that I can use to see the nests from outside of the wood.
So, anyone have any tips please?

Cheers
Gareth

Do what you've done. Most of the nests if not all will be this years anyway. Winter gales destroy most nests. All my Rookery counts are carried out just by walking through and counting the nests. Keep a record year on year. I re-visit and re-count every two weeks starting from January when they start to build until mid may. Visiting at the beginning of January will tell you if any of last years nests survived the winter.

Hope this helps

Rookery monitoring (1 Viewer)

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