When twitching rare birds, occasionally you come across one which is just so tame its stupid. The Grimsby American Robin, various American waders etc all spring to mind, but the Night Heron at Seaton Marshes in Devon which I visited on 22nd March possibly surpasses all these birds for behaving extremely well to the point of it being silly.
I arrived at the site mid-morning to find the Heron tucked away in a bush, almost completely obscured by twigs - not a particularly good start. Fortunately it soon started to walk out of the back of the bush towards the car park. To the amazement of the small crowd it continued to do so, eventually settling in a sheltered spot about 4 yards from the fence around the car park. Of course this was far too close for me to fit the whole bird in the frame, hence most of my images are headshots. It stayed in this same place for the next few hours (looking pretty knackered it must be said), apart from a couple of visits to a ditch a few yards away to catch a fish or two.
Sometime in the early afternoon, the Heron clearly got bored of sitting around, and started walking around the short grass and scrub next to the car park - a truly bizarre sight.
I left it standing in a ditch, perhaps waiting for dusk to start doing some serious feeding.
Prints of this bird are available for sale sizes up to A4. Many of the images are uncropped. I could probably do a better editing job on some, but haven't really had the time. |
