White Necked aka Pacific Heron in unusual stances

[Philip Veerman <>]

I too was there yesterday about 5 pm and with others watched this bird very close in front of the first hide. Was feeding very successfully then and not doing any of these poses. I can only suggest the way it is looking suggests preening, with likely an added complication of being bothered by some ticks or fleas.

I agree with Steve, it is not a match to the Black Heron.

 

Philip

 

From: Canberrabirds [ On Behalf Of Michael Lenz via Canberrabirds
Sent: Monday, 28 December, 2020 9:23 PM
To: Steve Read
Cc: chatline
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] White Necked aka Pacific Heron in unusual stances

 

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/?

--
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the Canberra Ornithologists Group.
Emails posted to the list that exceed 2 MB (2,000 kB) in size, including attachments, will be rejected.
All emails distributed via the list are archived at http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds. It is a condition of list membership that you agree to your contributions being archived.

Canberrabirds mailing list

https://lists.canberrabirds.org.au/mailman/listinfo/canberrabirds

ATT00001.txt
Description: ATT00001.txt