Promising article about recolonzation of european marsh birds! (1 Viewer)

Just been having a look through a few wesites and found this article describing the likely hood of certain marshland birds to be soon breeding again in the UK. such species as purple heron, night heron, cattle egret, great white egret are all featured, and with the recent success of the black wing stilts who knows what is possible! heres a link anyway

http://forests.org/archive/europe/mabifrom.htm

No doubt a few of these will start breeding, but people have been predicting new colonising species for years. Whats happened to the invasion of fan-tailed warblers, or the continuing colonisation of serin? The tide of common rosefinches soon fizzled out after they bred in the north east one year as well.
My guess is that a few species, prob including great white egret will stay to breed, but there wont be too many new species within our lifetime. If you increase the timescale, then many things become more likely. Just depends how bad this global warming gets...

Jess2002 said:

and with the recent success of the black wing stilts who knows what is possible![/url]

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I take it you mean the Martin Mere birds... have they hatched? Sorry, I haven't been following it...

We need to be more concerned about the birds we are losing. Spotted Flies and Corn Buntings are going down the drain. There were four singing male Corn Bunts in suitable habitat on my patch the other week, all in a small area. The farmer has now sprayed it all off. They have gone.. It's this kind of thing we need to be worried about!

From the article:

Night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax): After more than 150 UK sightings in the last decade, the British Birds Rarities Committee recently declared this species no longer rare. With the nearest breeding colonies in the Netherlands, a move across the North Sea is possible.

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Where? I only know of escaped Night Herons... the last wild colony disappeared in the 1970's, and very few have nested since. It is quite common in Central France though.
Purple Heron is not on the increase I think: its numbers vary. It is also very picky!
Great Egret is a matter of time: there is also a growing French population, and there is interchange with the Netherlands. They still breed in just a few places, although in winter, they can be found anywhere!
Now Spoonbill would be a possibility, because they have increased a lot in the last 40 years. They don't care too much about scenic beauty: just keep the foxes away!

Quote from the article : "little egrets nested for the first time in the North this summer, with a pair rearing one chick at Frodsham in Cheshire"

The North? Cheshire isn't even in the north of England, let alone the north of the UK