What they like

Water with fish. Rivers, lakes, ponds, wide ditches. Places to rest to dry off and to breed: posts, buoys, trees and little islands. Make it easy for them: leave dead branches along the water's edge, put a few sturdy posts in a nature-friendly bank, and give reed and cattail space. That also works in park ponds: less neat, more mess.

Ecological importance

Top fish-eater and cleaner. It mainly takes small to medium-sized fish and keeps fish populations moving. Chicks and eggs are prey for gulls, crows and sometimes foxes; adults are preyed on by the white-tailed eagle. Colonies are little fertilizer factories: locally they change the soil and vegetation. That's part of dynamic nature, but do give such a colony a place where it's allowed.

When in the Netherlands

All year round. In winter there are extra numbers because of migrants and overwintering birds.

Status

Breeding bird and common species. Strongly recovered since the last century.