Giving Manawagonish Herons a Second Chance

It may look like a tranquil spot from a mile away on Saint’s Rest Beach, but in the summer, Manawagonish Island is anything but peaceful. For a few months out of the year, nesting gulls, cormorants, and Great Blue Herons transform the normally serene island into a noisy, seething bird colony as they breed and raise their young.

In recent years Great Blue herons have been contributing less and less to the cacophony of the colony. Manawagonish at one point was home to 44 pairs of breeding herons, but over the past few decades, the Island’s heron population has dwindled to a handful as its spruce forest has all but disappeared. Herons require sturdy trees to support the large stick nests where they raise their young. Manawagonish otherwise provides an excellent breeding site for herons because of its proximity to productive foraging grounds at Saint’s Rest Marsh. Its relatively inaccessible island location minimizes human disturbance.

Manawagonish, donated by Saint John native Joyce Pridham and her three sisters, is one of 26 nature preserves managed by the Nature Trust of New Brunswick, a province-wide land trust. As responsible stewards the Trust has initiated a project to build artificial nesting platforms for Great Blue Herons this fall. Nesting platforms for herons have been used in other sites where colonies have decreased due to dying forests, however these are the first heron platforms to be erected in New Brunswick.

The triangular platforms are fixed four to a pole and mimic the birds’ natural habitat, enabling them to raise their young in groups. “It’s a novel project in many ways,” said Margo Sheppard, Executive Director of the Nature Trust of New Brunswick. “To find an appropriate design we consulted the NB Museum, Canadian Wildlife Service and even the US Navy, anyone who had had success or knows these birds” Sheppard says it’s the group’s obligation to be good caretakers of this property, in this case by doing all they can to help the birds. “It’s also a bit of an experiment.”

“We’ve had a tremendous amount of support from the community” says project manager Laura Minich. “JD Irving donated the lumber and hardware, Marwood Ltd. donated the utility poles, volunteer Keith Robertson assembled all the platforms; everyone is eager to see the this project happen.” A generous donation by the Astle family and a grant from the Evergreen Foundation of Toronto has enabled the group to hire a helicopter to transport the platforms, already affixed to 22’ telephone poles, to the Island. Two linesmen from Saint John Energy also volunteered with the installation.

The Nature of New Brunswick is a land trust committed to preserving ecologically significant properties in the province. Due to the sensitive nature of bird colonies during the nesting season, the Nature Trust asks that no one visits Manawagonish from April to August. For more information contact the Nature Trust by phone, 457-2398, or email, ntnb@nbnet.nb.ca, or visit our website at www.naturetrust.nb.ca.

Contacts:

Laura Minich, Project Manager
naturetrust@ntnb.org

Margo Sheppard, Executive Director
ntnb@nbnet.nb.ca