Thanks Kym, Hi all
I was watching the same White-necked (Pacific) Heron for a while this morning, from Ardea hide at the wetlands, and saw it do another strange (to me) behaviour: half-opening its wings and rolling
its ‘shoulders’ forwards so that the half-open wings formed an umbrella-shape over the water. The bird was perched on a very low branch over the water at the time, and the pose was held for many seconds, and repeated several times.
This looked at first sight like the well-known ‘canopy-feeding’ behaviour of the Black Heron, reputed to attract small fish to the patch of shade thus created (https://www.audubon.org/news/watch-black-heron-fool-fish-turning-umbrella).
However, each time it adopted this pose, the head of the Pacific Heron rotated so that it faced upwards, so that the bird appeared to be looking up at the underside of its wings. It did not scan the water for prey while in this pose.
Can anyone suggest a reason for this and the poses in Kym’s pictures?
Steve
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of kym bradley via Canberrabirds
Sent: Monday, 28 December 2020 6:04 PM
To:
Subject: [Canberrabirds] White Necked aka Pacific Heron in unusual stances
Jerra Wetlands 28.12.2020
I think the stances are possibly for cooling when they are warm use the wings like a reflector I may be wrong someone may have the correct answer
