White Necked aka Pacific Heron in unusual stances

[Michael Lenz via Canberrabirds <>]

Perhaps using the warmth of the sun to deal with unwanted guests in its plumage?

Michael Lenz

On Mon, 28 Dec 2020 at 19:25, Steve Read via Canberrabirds <> wrote:

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

 

4 images so far

 

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

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lubba/?

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