A remarkable meal

Spend enough time watching wildlife and you will be guaranteed occasions that surprise, impress and delight you. Just the other day I chanced across one such occasion. Scanning across the marshes I picked out a heron struggling with an unusually large prey item. The bird was distant and the magnification of the binoculars insufficient to resolve what it was that the heron was struggling to swallow. Quickly setting up my telescope I was soon on the bird. Much to my amazement the heron was attempting to swallow a stoat, the rear two-thirds of which were hanging from the bird’s beak.

The stoat was dead, of that there was no question; the russet body and black-tipped tail hung limply, swinging pendulum-like as the heron attempted to reposition its prey. Over the following minutes the heron continued in its efforts to swallow the stoat, throwing its head back and pointing its bill skywards, as if seeking the aid of gravity to push the unfortunate mustelid further down its throat. Finally, after much effort, the last of the stoat slipped out of sight and the great bill closed.

This, however, was not the end of the struggle. The bulge of the stoat could be clearly seen in the throat and the heron again began to throw back its head. Such a large prey item was causing discomfort and the bird still had some way to go to get its meal further down the digestive tract. Moments of continued effort were followed by periods where the bird stood still, only the great bill opening and closing as if the heron was struggling to draw breath. Then, the act of swallowing still unfinished, the bird walked down the bank, into a drain and out of view.

Whether the heron had stumbled across the stoat, already dead, or whether the stoat had wandered unknowingly within range of the heron’s dagger-like beak, was unclear. I suspect the latter but whatever had happened prior to my arrival it was still a remarkable sight. Herons will take larger fish and they regularly take small birds and mammals but this was something that I’ve not seen mentioned in the literature. It was new to me and all the more astonishing for it.

Water levels challenge the birds

The volume of water passing down the river over recent weeks has been staggering, requiring careful management of the sluices by Environment Agency staff. Such volumes underline the power of nature, the swollen waters swirling and deeply coloured with debris, and flowing with force. On some days the waters have slipped the confines of the river banks to flow out across the low lying meadows and on through the wood where I will search for blackbird nests come spring.

The conditions must prove challenging for the river’s inhabitants and I often wonder how the fish and otters fair when the river is in full spate. The rising waters will also have caught out some of our nesting birds. I have a suspicion that at least some of the local mallards will have been down on eggs, their early nesting prompted by the mild conditions witnessed earlier in the year. A few pairs nest in the alder carr alongside the river and any that had already started here this year will have been flooded out.

The water level by the old mill has crept up above the entrance to a small cavity in which the grey wagtails often nest. The fact that these delightful little birds start breeding somewhat later in the year means that they should be fine. Elsewhere, and well away from the lowland rivers of the brecks, many dippers will be beginning their breeding season, nesting in river bank cavities or on ledges under bridges. Some of these nest sites will almost certainly have been lost to the torrents of water rushing downstream, through river systems across the north and west of the country.

Away from the river and some of our other early nesters will have instead had to face a battering from the strong winds. Rooks and herons will already be at their nest sites, situated high in the canopies of trees, and their nests of stick may well have been dislodged. Repairs will be necessary, delaying the start of the breeding season. Of course, the weather also provides opportunities. The local crows have, for example, been feasting on insects and other prey pushed out of the meadow’s thick cover by rising waters. It would seem that there is resilience in nature.

Riverine

Having spent much of the day in the house, the weather outside a succession of heavy showers, I feel a need to go out and get some air. It’s late afternoon and a suggestion that the sun might be breaking through gives me the impetus that I need and I head down to the river. The walk is brisk, easing the stiffness from my joints and clearing the day’s paperwork from my mind, and I cut through the still dripping wood and strike out towards the meadow.

I like this bit of the river. It is off the beaten track and you have to pick your way through rank vegetation to rediscover its meandering course. The scattered Alders chart the river’s route through the meadow and I am soon settled on the bank, screened on three sides by nettles and rough grasses. Because movement through this bit of meadow is difficult and noisy, it is impossible to approach any animals or birds without scaring them away. I find that the best approach (as it is in many habitats) is to find a suitable spot in which to settle and to wait patiently for the wildlife to approach you.

I have not long been settled when the sun fades behind a thickening blanket of cloud, heralding the approach of another squally shower. At first the smooth surface of the river reveals just a few spots of rain but then, increasingly, the ripples coalesce as the rain’s intensity increases. With several layers of clothing, including a goose-down jacket and a waterproof, I will be dry enough but I hunch forward, drawing my legs up to protect my camera bag. From under my hood I still have a good view and watch the approach of a male Muntjac. He has not seen me, or if he has, he has mistaken me for a large grey mass, perhaps a rock or unmoving pile of decomposing vegetation. It is wonderful to be able to watch unseen, the deer browsing intermittently as it passes by just a few feet from me.

The rain strengthens further, becoming a rush of hail, noisy on my hood and reducing the visibility such that I lose sight of the Muntjac. Just as quickly as it arrived so the hail halts and, soon after, the rain too. A Grey Heron drifts in on broad wings; legs held below it drops to the opposite bank. It seems unsure but I cannot tell if it is my presence or the fact that there is no obvious route for it to take into the water, such is the growth of emergent bankside vegetation. The heron lifts itself away with strong strokes and the river is mine alone.

The Watcher

The heron returned again this morning; perched on the roof of the pagoda two doors down, it stood immobile but alert. The pagoda had been constructed in response to the heron’s earlier visits, when it had lifted fish from the neighbour’s ornamental pond. The loss of prize fish triggered the construction of what was, in effect, a wooden cage, a space within which the heron would not feel comfortable, hemmed in and prevented from quick escape. The pagoda has served its purpose and the heron now merely uses it as a perch from which to eye up the wildlife pond situated just over the low flint wall. Although lacking in fish, it is used by amphibians and these are viewed by the heron as an equally acceptable snack.

There is an unhurried sense of patience about the heron, the way in which it can stand immobile, poised ready to strike at some creature within the water in which it stands. Unlike the busy foraging behaviour of the Little Egret, which stirs up the sediment with its stunning yellow feet, the heron adopts a passive approach; ‘good things will come to those who wait’.

I do, however, sense a degree of nervousness about the heron when it visits. After all, these are urban gardens and there are many unfamiliar sights and sounds; is the movement glimpsed at a window a threat? Is there a cat lurking nearby? Even so, the response of the heron is measured, the head slowly rotating to direct its piercing stare towards the perceived threat. The gaze can appear almost reptilian, cold and harsh; a shared ancestry brought to the surface. The reptilian nature is even more apparent when these birds are seen close up. A few years ago I helped to ring a number of heron chicks; delightful creatures that would vomit up the remains of their most recent meal in order to discourage you from handling them! Lacking the graceful plumage of an adult bird, these chicks were disgustingly reptilian and primitive in form, so far removed from the elegant lines they would attain once attired in their grey and white plumage.

These visits tend to come early in the morning, before much of the neighbourhood is up and about. I often wonder whether it is the same bird returning, or whether a number of individuals make use of the ponds as they pass over the town between other feeding sites. It is very easy to think of the town centre as being truly urbanised but from the air the long narrow gardens that characterise the old part of town must seem like a single green entity, an oasis replete with well-stocked feeding opportunities.

Heron drops by

We had a new bird in the garden last week - a grey heron. Although not the most popular of visitors for some, we were delighted to see such an impressive bird. The heron was perched on a wall; stiff and erect, it was alert to any danger but seemed uneasy within such urban surroundings. It must have been attracted by the presence of three ponds, one in each of the neighbouring gardens. At least two of these are free of fish, designed as they are with wildlife in mind, so it seemed unlikely that the heron would find them quite as attractive as they may have appeared from the air. Perhaps sensing this, the heron laboured up into the air after a few minutes to disappear behind neighbouring houses.

Herons have done well in recent years, their numbers increasing thanks to a run of mild winters. Cold winters, leading to frozen waterbodies, can spell disaster for herons, isolating them from their feeding grounds and increasing mortality levels within the population. The influence of winter weather on the heron population has been documented thanks to the British Trust for Ornithology’s annual Heronries Census. The study has been carried out annually since it was launched in 1928 by the late Max Nicholson, making it the longest running study of a bird population in Britain (and possibly the world). Although many heronries contain just a few nests, some can contain dozens or even hundreds. I used to live next door to a small heronry at Wolterton Park, to the north of Aylsham. Each spring, the ekk ekk ekk calls of the young herons could be heard, as they demanded food from their parents. The ground beneath the colony was splattered with droppings and pellets, the latter containing the coughed-up hard remains of unfortunate fish, eels, voles and amphibians.

Nowadays, I tend to see herons on the coastal marshes or along the river valleys well inland but, as my recent sighting shows, they will also visit garden ponds, a habit that can cause consternation for some. Discouraging herons from taking fish is not straightforward. A net covering the entire pond is the only truly effective deterrent.  Plastic herons, sold on the notion that having one by your pond will discourage a “real” heron from visiting, are useless since herons are not territorial and will often feed communally. Intersecting wires, placed a foot or so off the ground around the pond, may work because herons do not like stepping over objects. Of course, you could just add more cover within the pond itself, accept that you may lose the occasional fish, and enjoy the sight of such an impressive bird.