HERON: an aristocrat makes a meal of some tiddlers

WITH his deadly sword-like beak, tall figure and imperious stalking manner, the heron has always seemed like an aristocrat among birds to me as he goes about his daily hunt for food.

Often a loner during hunts, he can stand motionless for hours on end in freezing water as he picks off fish, frogs, insects, small birds and mammals that come within striking distance.

Long legs and a long neck help herons reach an impressive 98 cms in height which is about the size of a Canada goose.

But a heron's more upright, rigid stance makes him seem even larger. Occasionally, you can spot herons standing like scarecrows in open fields when their luck has run out at ponds or lakes and they turn their attentions to warmer-blooded prey.

This change of strategy, combined with a heron's eye-catching grey, white and black plumage can add up to a wonderful bonus for the casual bird-watcher strolling in open countryside.

It's usually quite difficult to get close to a sharp-eyed heron in the wild - or so I thought until I went on holiday to Ireland last year.

There, at an idyllic inlet about 30 miles south of Cork, I sat watching a heron fishing in shallow salt water just 20 feet away.

Boats bobbed around near a jetty and fishermen readied a trawler for another expedition close by.

But this particular heron seemed unconcerned.

Ruthlessly, relentlessly, he stalked and ate a succession of silvery tiddlers, snatching them up one after another.

I counted at least 10 victims so this bird obviously boasted a healthy appetite.

That beak is truly formidable and I can't remember my Irish heron missing with a single strike, such was the surgical precision of his technique.

Although herons are fairly evenly distributed across the whole of the British Isles, nesting herons are more difficult to pinpoint.

So I was fortunate as a child to live near a communal nesting site located in trees in the middle of a swamp.

During the frenetic breeding season, the big adult birds would flap in on mighty wings to feed their ravenous chicks and often tottered unsteadily on legs not best designed for perching in branches.

For someone who previously thought the heron solitary and elusive, this breeding colony was an eye-opener.

Noisy and smelly, you were aware of its existence from quite a distance. However, so cleverly was it arranged in the centre of the swamp that there was no real danger from predators, at least not from the likes of foxes or stoats.

Perhaps a hawk or owl could have threatened the chicks from the air but it would have been a brave individual that was willing to risk a stab from a heron's murderous beak.

Even so, herons don't have it all their own way and I read of one bird that needed rescuing after falling foul of two swans.

These bigger, even more powerful birds brook no opposition during their own breeding time and it appeared the heron had simply strayed too close to their nest.

Battered and dazed in a furious onslaught, it was finally plucked to safety by an animal rescuer before the swans could move in and finish it off. Herons have also been cruelly treated by Man, usually as a result of ignorance.

So impressive are a heron's fishing skills that many people once believed the bird's legs must hold a magical allure, drawing fish helplessly within killing range.

Sadly, this mistaken belief backfired on the heron.

Many birds were trapped and dispatched so that their severed legs could be spread around local fishing areas for the benefit of human anglers - presumably to little effect.