Date: 4/11/25 8:30 pm From: Ken Wills via groups.io <memontei...> Subject: [ALbirds] Suburban Heron Rookery in Hoover
Hello all,
>
> For all those interested in Urban/Suburban Birding around metro Birmingham, I was informed by Lisa Ray that there was a heron rookery along Patton Creek behind the Patton Creek Shopping Center in Hoover. I checked it out right before dark. If you park in the Rooms To Go Parking Lot and walk across the very wide and busy Chapel Lane and look over the Patton Creek Valley to the pines on the opposite ridge you will see lots of nesting Great Egrets in breeding plumage along with some Great Blue Herons mixed in. There may be more species in that rookery, but it was getting dark so it was hard to see all the details. If and when I go to the Patton Creek Shopping Center is is normally at night, so I have never noticed the rookery, but based on the dying state of some of the pines, the rookery has evidently been there a few years.
>
> If you decide to check it out, be careful of the fast traffic when crossing the road. You can cross at a more narrow spot down the hill across from Going Going Gone. Also, on the Rooms To Go side of the road there is a nice sidewalk that goes along the road (very noisy) under I-459 and across Patton Creek where I saw lots of Chimney Swifts and swallows. If you want to make it a real birding outing, I would go to the Sulphur Springs Road Parking lot of nearby Moss Rock Preserve in the morning and bird the Powerline Trail with the sun at your back and make a loop back through the woods along the White Trail which largely follows Hurricane Branch. You are likely to pick up some early migrants in the morning and then go check out the nearby rookery and sidewalk along Patton Creek mid day.
>
> The fact that the herons are nesting on the ridge top puts them on land that could develop in future, but with that land sandwiched between the steep creek valley and I-459, it is not a hot property right now. Not sure if the rookery warrants a conservation effort, but the stream corridor from Moss Rock Preserve down Hurricane Branch and Patton Creek to the Cahaba River has potential as a greenway if someone wants to pursue that.
>
> Enjoy and Conserve the Creation,
> Ken Wills
> For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life,---Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
> Mathew 6:25-26
>
