Tag: heron

Breakfast Time for a Heron

Walking through the orchard at Fountains Abbey early yesterday, I came upon this heron, not 10 feet away. He was unconcerned about me, and spent his time alert for a breakfast meal. He found three courses during the time I watched him – about 20 minutes. This video shows him enjoying just one of them.

A heron out hunting along the river bank for breakfast.

It’s my last (and first) video of the month. My last shot of the month is also one of the heron, and is my featured photo. I was quite fed up that I only had my bargain-basement phone with me, rather than my camera. Never mind.

For Brian’s Last on the Card

… and IJK’s Bird of the Week.

Herons World-Wide(ish)

Over at Don’t hold your Breath, IJ Khanewala features an Indian Pond Heron as his Bird of the Week. I remarked to him that herons get everywhere. And here’s the proof. I can’t claim to show examples from anything like every continent, much less every country where you’ll find herons, but here are just a few.

This one was after an easy catch in our landlord’s garden and noticed by our trail camera.

These are all from England: click on an image to find out where.

These two come from Spain, from l’Albufera near Valencia, and from Córdoba.

Dordrecht in the Netherlands
Lake Prespa in Greece (but it’s an egret?)

And the featured image comes from Busan in South Korea.

Not exactly a world-wide survey. But I go a small way towards proving my point.

Who wants to feature in a Monday Portrait from Prespa?

Don’t take photos of us …

… we’re too shy.

Night heron
Egret

… or these pelicans. They’re too far away.

… If I hurry, could it be me?

Great crested grebe

… Am I too late? …

Great egret

… You need a cormorant. But me, not him…

Cormorants

… See? I knew you’d choose me! …

…… D’you know what? I think we got away with it. I think she’s gone now …

The well-travelled heron

I am an occasional contributor to the Bird Weekly Photo Challenge: and this week’s appealed. Birds that eat fish as their primary diet. Well, I have images of gannets, gulls and guillemots. I have puffins, though not a single photo features one with a beak crammed with sand eels.

But the fish-eater I love the most is the bird I so often see snaffling goldfish from our landlord’s pond: or as I walk the banks of our neighbourhood River Ure : the one I spot as I hang over the sides of bridges and boats in Spain: the one fishing in among the townhouses of Dordrecht, the Netherlands: the one in my featured photo who was flying down the canal-side in Busan South Korea. It’s the heron, the grey heron.

  • Sneaking goldfish from our landlord’s garden pond.
  • Just a few hundred metres from our house, fishing on the Ure.
  • Parque Natural de la Albufera, Valencia
  • Evening on the River Guadalquivir, Córdoba.
  • Dordrecht, the Netherlands
  • With an egret companion on Nosterfield Nature Reserve, North Yorkshire

Click on any image to see it full size

Snapshot Saturday: rus in urbe*

I’ve been in London this week, spending each day with William, now almost two.

One of the things I love about being with The London Branch is the real connection with nature that’s to be had in Hither Green, part of busy multicultural Lewisham.

We’ve spent happy moments peeking out of the window watching the fox cubs playing and relaxing in the garden next door.

Virtually every day we go to one of the parks near their house. And the day before yesterday, this is what we saw.  A juvenile heron doing what herons have to do.  Fishing.

I saw this heron as a friend, a link with my more rural day-to-day life. You might think that’s a bit of a stretch, but perhaps he, like me, is a fellow country bumpkin among all these townies.

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is ‘friend’.

  • ‘country in the city’