Vieta: 2,8 km nuo Juodkrantės centro

Exiting Juodkrantė’s settlement towards Nida, before you climb up the Hill of Ram, visit the Hill of Heron, which was named after a local landmark - one of Lithuania's largest colonies of cormorants and grey herons.

Although no one can tell exactly when grey herons inhabited Juodkrantė’s area, it is known that these long legged birds were already regularly spotted here since the 17th century. They became a very common sight around the settlement in the 19th century. The intrigue lies in their dramatic duel with an aggressive invasive species - the cormorants.

Often characterised as a pest bird due to their co-nesting nature and extensive damage to the vegetation where the birds nest, the cormorants started overtaking the grey herons nests around 1803. Slowly, the grey herons were pushed out to the edges of their nesting grounds and eventually migrated to the southern side of Juodkrantė. Finally, in about a decade, two colonies were formed at the southern and northern tips of Juodkrantė.

Back in 1978, the great cormorants became exceptionally rare in Lithuania’s mainland seaside and the Curonian Spit.  Then, a new wave of the species arrived and settled next to the grey herons, which, nest by nest, had to abandon their homes to the invasive birds. The year of 1995 marked the lowest number of nesting grey herons in the Curonian Spit.

In the currently existing two colonies the data collected in 2021 noted 3,135 nesting pairs of great cormorants and 228 nesting pairs of grey herons. The cormorant population is regulated. In the first part of February Neringa welcomes its first cormorants, shortly followed by the returning population of grey herons. The colony comes to its rowdy life by the end of March.