Long legs and necks help herons hunt fish
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The very long and incongruous looking legs are matched by the very long neck and the beak is quite remarkable as it is very long and dagger shaped.
Not only that, the heron is one of our earliest breeding birds and, despite their size, they build huge nests in trees.
It might be asked what such a long-legged bird is doing clambering around, always seemingly ungainly, among the upper branches of often very tall trees?
This is one of the best times of the year to see these impressive birds as, now the young have fledged and long since flown the nest, they can be found virtually anywhere. They will venture far inland and will feed in the narrowest of burns to the sides of large lochs and all along the coasts.
It is not only the adults that wander but also this year’s juvenile birds, easily recognised from the adults by the absence of the long head plumes over the neck and the back. They also look much greyer than the adults.
So to start with, how soon do they nest and why so early? As far as timing is concerned, they will have eggs laid so early they are only matched by the golden eagle and the raven. All these birds can have eggs in late February, way ahead of most other breeding birds.
There are two reasons why herons nest so early, their choice of food and where they nest. The nests are mainly in colonies, called heronries. While most of them are in tall trees, in the Highlands they can nest on cliff faces and even on the ground in isolated areas. Whatever their siting, they are mainly near the coast so freezing of their feeding areas is rare. The interaction of the tides in estuaries and firths means that food is always available.
The long legs and long neck are ideal for hunting for fish, which is their main food. If you see a heron stalking in the shallows, and not so shallow water, you will immediately see the advantage of such a long neck and legs. The dagger shaped beak is idea for spearing fish and the size of the fish is often surprisingly large. This beak will also easily deal with the likes of small mammals, birds and amphibians.
Herons are also adept at raiding garden ponds and will have had their fill of pet goldfish before the house awakes in the morning. One person I know bought a model of a heron from a local garden centres, they all sell them, and put it in the garden by the pond where the fish were being taken by herons. The idea was that the full-size model would frighten other herons off. The person woke early to find a real heron was trying to mate with the model he had put out. A lesson learned, no doubt by the owner and, of course, the real heron!
There are all sorts of stories, some facts and some myths, about the heron which is not surprising with such an unusual looking bird.
One well known one is the way the bird manages to incubate its large bright blue eggs with such long legs. The answer at one time was that there are two holes in the floor of the huge nest and the bird puts its legs through them so it can incubate the eggs easily. Many years ago I was once shown a very old heronry on an island and the person who took me there said that if the sun was in the right direction you could see the holes where the birds put their long legs!
In contrast, what is true is that the heron exudes a powder down, just like talcum power, from glands on its legs. The bird uses this to clear up the slime that is inevitable from fish, especially one of its favourites, the eel.
Record of the week
Record of the week must go down as the gannets I was watching last week and they could easily have been anywhere along the coast, east, west or north. The point is that they will, even at this time of the year, range far and wide in their daily search for food and this intensifies as the chicks grow larger.
The majority of gannets you see will be the adult ones with their impressive black and white plumage. The size is dramatic as the wing span is up to six feet.
Gannets take four years for their plumage to moult into the adults and that means four years before they can breed. The older three-year-olds will assemble on the great gannetries, forming “clubs” that do not attempt to breed. The younger birds will simply wander the oceans, a true seabird.
I have been fortunate to stand in the huge gannetries of St Kilda and on Sula Sgeir and they are one of the most impressive thrills of my life-time. There is something compelling about them, almost mystical, and their Latin name is “Sula bassana”. Little wonder then that we called two of our miniature dachshunds Sula and Sgeir.
The figures for Scotland are staggering as there are over 180,000 pairs in 14 major colonies and this is more than 40 per cent of the world population. The numbers in Scotland seem to be stable or even, dare we say it, slightly increasing.
