Friday 7 February 2014

The strange case of the Grey Heron.

In the eight short years that I have been birding I have never gotten near a Grey Heron.
I am down in Kent this week visiting family and this afternoon took one of the grandchildren to the local country park. As we walked around the medium sized lake the Grey Heron pictured below flew straight over to where we stood on one of the fishing platforms. It landed in front of us approximately two metres away. I had never seen this behaviour before as EVERY Grey Heron I had come across had always flown off if I had inadvertently drifted too close. Was this guy expecting to be fed ? NAH, I thought.
We made our way to the play area having left the lake and some forty five minutes later as we were loading into the car I noticed a young couple feeding the local waterfowl. Standing on some steps that lead into the lake was the Grey Heron, quite close to the couple. They threw it something and it fed. I shouted over "Excuse me, what are you feeding the Heron ?" "Bread" they replied.
They walked off as I went down to have a closer look and I slowly sidled up to the bird with my camera sporting the 40mm lens that I had been using previously. The bird stood there and I got to within a metre ( less than that, I reckon) and captured the image below.
Anyone else seen a "tame....ish" Heron before ?

Anyone gotta slice of Hovis ?

2 comments:

  1. The next time you go down there, take a peanut butter sarnie. and it might even pose for you!

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  2. That is it posing. I'm shocked at it eating bread...............fish, frogs, young birds usually on the menu.

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