On Saturday a chance encounter led to a intimate connection with one of these prehistoric birds. A series of small brooks join the Avon, one of which runs near the canal aquaduct. This brook was gushing with water, swelled by overfill from the canal and in it I stumbled upon the Heron.
It was stood leg deep in the water, pacing along its edge. Normally Herons are very flighty. On my own patch they rarely allow you to get close than 15-20 metres but this individual was remarkably unconcerned. Looping around so as not to disturb it I paused on the bridge and unslung my camera.
The heron was well aware of my presence. They have amazing eyes. They are place on the sides of the head allowing for good all round vision but are able to twiddle them forward to give great binocular vision for the all important hunt.
Aside from myself several others came past and stopped to watch, each passer by elicited little more than a glance unless of course they had a dog, where the heron would become more agitated. It would gape its beak and extort a harsh croak.
After a short while, tired of fishing it flapped up onto a branch and proceeded begin a grooming cycle. This further reinforced how comfortable the bird was now barely 5 metres from me. It gave me a chance to watch as it bent its neck around to check the chest plumage and rearrange the feathers under the wing. It occasionally supplemented this with a scratch from one of the legs.
Such a comfortable close up gave me a chance to really explore the animal and focus on the eye and beak. The beak is a solid thing and you can see how its dagger shape is well suited to catching slippery and wriggling fish as well as hopping amphibians and scampering voles. As I mentioned before, the eyes are a sight to behold. There is something primitive and almost dinosaur like in their gaze. When you stare into the eyes of a heron you really can believe they evolved directly from the small theropod dinosaurs.
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