Lights, camera, herons: Pacific Great Blue Herons return to Stanley Park
Posted February 23, 2021 7:51 pm.
Last Updated February 23, 2021 7:54 pm.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The birds are back in town! The Pacific Great Blue Herons are back nesting in Stanley Park for another breeding season. That also means the Park Board’s heron cams are live again too, streaming their daily antics live from the City of Vancouver website.
“The heron cam is up on a tall building nearby at a safe distance that it’s able to offer a non-invasive way to enjoy the activities of the heron breeding season,” explains Dannie Piezas, the urban wildlife coordinator for the Stanley Park Ecology Society.
“So, what people will see through the spring and the summer is all of what happens in the breeding season of herons.”
That can include nest-building, egg-laying, even how they fend off eagle attacks. Oh, don’t forget courtship and mating rituals.
“And once they pick their mates, they get right on things,” she adds.
The bird is the word… https://t.co/JAvLit9gcP
— John Ackermann ???? (@jackermann) February 24, 2021
Piezas says the cams, which have been around since 2015, were especially popular last year.
“Yeah, it’s hard to not think of COVID as one of the reasons behind that because people were stuck at home and here was an opportunity for people to enjoy nature in quite an intimate and exciting way from home.”
She points out the colony outside the Park Board office is one of the largest urban heron colonies in all of North America.
