{"id":14071,"date":"2023-08-17T11:37:57","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T06:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=14071"},"modified":"2025-04-02T09:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T04:11:16","slug":"what-are-herons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-are-herons\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Herons?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Heron:\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>These are any of about 60 <strong>species of long-legged wading birds.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>These are classified in <strong>the family Ardeidae<\/strong> (order Ciconiiformes) and generally including several species usually called egrets.<\/li>\n<li>The Ardeidae also include the bitterns (subfamily Botaurinae).<\/li>\n<li>These are widely distributed over the world but <strong>are most common in the tropics<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>They usually feed while wading quietly in the <strong>shallow waters of pools, marshes<\/strong>, and swamps, catching frogs, fishes, and other aquatic animals.<\/li>\n<li>They nest in rough platforms of sticks constructed in bushes or trees near water; the nests usually are grouped in colonies called heronries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h3>Significance of the Heronry count<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Heronry counts aims at counting \u2018<strong>apparently occupied nests\u2019 of herons, egrets, and other colonial waterbirds.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This is regarded as an effective and accurate way to determine the <strong>breeding population of waterbirds in an area.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Being one of the top predators in the aquatic food chain, monitoring their population can indicate the health of the aquatic ecosystem, freshwater as well as brackish water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are marshes?<\/h3>\n<p>Marshes are wetlands characterized by shallow, often stagnant water and an abundance of grasses, reeds, and other water-loving vegetation. They can be found in various locations around the world, including along coastlines, in river valleys, and even in inland areas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/kerala\/heronries-are-thriving-in-thiruvananthapuram-district-says-a-wwf-survey\/article67206306.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Heronries are thriving in Thiruvananthapuram district, says a WWF survey<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Herons are any of about 60 species of long-legged wading birds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}