It’s all quiet now but if you’ve ever been to the Farmington Bay great blue heron rookery during spring and early summer you will be treated to one of the best bird-watching opportunities in all of Utah.
Each spring, usually starting sometime in March, great blue herons from all over the southern portion of the Great Salt Lake begin to make their way to the Farmington Bay heron rookery to pick a spot for the upcoming breeding season.
Great blue herons prefer to nest in large groups of birds of the same species commonly known as a colony.
And great blue herons prefer to nest high up off the ground whenever possible to reduce predation from land-based animals such as raccoons, foxes, and coyotes, among others.
Large trees are most commonly used by great blue herons for these breeding colonies referred to as a rookery but they will nest in bushes, mangroves, and even on the ground if nothing else is available.
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As it is with Farmington Bay, places where tall trees or other preferred natural nesting sites aren’t available, artificial nesting structures can be constructed to offer a suitable alternative nesting location for great blue herons.
If you’re not familiar with it, the great blue heron rookery at Farmington Bay is just that, an artificial breeding structure that consists of 6 large power poles with several flat wooden supports attached that act as nesting platforms for the herons.
(The Great Blue Heron Rookery At Farmington Bay.
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Each pole has three platforms attached high up and each season every platform gets used by a pair of nesting great blue herons.
Over the years, however, the wooden platforms have faced much wear and tear due to weather and are in great need of replacement.
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A plan to add a second great blue heron rookery was proposed earlier this year by the late Billie Fenimore, manager of the Eccles Wildlife Education Center at the time, but a suitable location wasn’t found so it was decided that the current heron rookery could be expanded with a few more poles and nesting platforms.
As a result, this fall, sometime in August or September, the great blue heron rookery at Farmington Bay will be getting a much-needed facelift and a much-welcomed expansion, largely due to the vision of Billy Fenimore but also with the greatly appreciated help of Rocky Mountain Power who will be supplying the poles, machinery, and manpower for the project as well as Jason Jones, Manager at Farmington Bay, who approved the project for the rookery expansion.
It’s no easy task to construct and erect such a structure in a wetland so large machinery to dig suitable holes as well as handle the massive poles will be brought in to erect the structure and help replace all the old, rotting nesting platforms.
More information will be made available here on our blog when a date is decided upon for the public event so head on over to our subscribe page and sign up for email notifications for future blog posts.
We will make mention of the event in a future blog post when all the details are decided upon by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Rocky Mountain Power so the public can come and watch the great blue heron rookery get refurbished and expanded.
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