Night-heron – Cheddar, Somerset, 17^th September 1988

The Night-heron at Mere Sands Wood Nature Reserve - initial sketch

The Night-heron at Mere Sands Wood Nature Reserve - eventual drawing

A bit silly this one..... . Alison Bunting and I chased a Night-heron up a tree in Cheddar. Or something like that. No, honest!

It was a Birdline bird tree’d in a mature beech in a large derelict garden alongside the road and stream through Cheddar village. It was Saturday the 17th September, and Alison and I had travelled there from Dorset.

There, along with others (including Roz Gilbert, who I worked alongside on the BP Purbeck to Southampton Pipeline Project and her partner Matt Plenty) we jockeyed for a viewing place and craned our necks for a sight of the bird. The beech was large, but once the bird had been located the views were good. They became much better when it became active and clambered through the branches into a position in which it could be watched from the other side of the road bridge rather than up amongst the tangle of branches.

It was a small heron, with white under-parts, and black upper-parts, including the back, crown, etc., and grey wings and tail. The face pattern was notable due to the black crown and eye-stripe and white forehead, chin and throat. The eye was red and it had a heavy bill which was mainly dark and the legs were yellow.

Latterly, it turned out this bird may or may not have been an escape.... .

Subsequent records were hardly any less silly. Some 14 months later (presumably November 1989) I twice attended a gathering of birders in, I think, Highcliffe in Dorset, to witness what was an immature Night-heron flying away from an area within which it roosted a dusk. The area involved comprised houses with large gardens in a valley within which there was a pond. The bird could be seen as it quickly flew over the pond. It had an almost owl-like appearance in flight due to its size and large rounded wings. Still, again, somewhat inauspicious.

Talking of which, in May 1990 I seemingly saw my third Night-heron at Porthellick whilst twitching the Tree Swallow. However, I have zero recollection of this, although I will plead mitigating circumstances (part of an overnight twitch to Scilly from St. Albans whilst sporting an undiagnosed broken wrist).

And lastly, (I think), I saw an adult at Mere Sands Woods Nature Reserve in early 2008. I saw this bird well, and on my own, but ..... . Actually, not but, as it wasn’t exactly a problem; but this bird was subsequently considered to potentially be the Nearctic sub-species of Night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax hoactli) aka Black-crowned Night-heron. Who knows? Future armchair tick?

Night-heron at Mere Sands Wood Nature Reserve, near Rufford, Lancashire, March 2008 (photograph credited to Steve Tomlinson).