Latest news with #heron
The Guardian
17-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: Sometimes the shy visitors are the most welcome
As I walk beside a quiet lochan at the hem of the Cairngorms, a goldeneye family speeds into view. The mother is sleek, with russet crown and yellow eye, while her chicks are tousled fluffballs, but matching her in pace and the comical thrusting of the head. With her, they leap into a dive. Moments later, all re-emerge in a carpet of waterlilies, losing any sense of urgency as they meander through the pads. Overhead, gulls wheel and tip, corvids feather the air and a grey heron makes a flappy circuit. Below, four tufted ducks turn in languorous circles, dipping and shaking their glossy heads to full effect in the sunshine. In contrast, sand martins perform aerial circus stunts all across the loch, careening about in their crazy, dippy flight, glancing off the water and catapulting into the air. Round to the right, something has irked the greylag geese, and the sound of ruffled feathers grows into wingbeats and an outraged honking as they rise and circle and land again. A flotilla launches into the water, fuzzy brown goslings in tow, everybody still a-cluck about something. Meanwhile, a dumpy little bird has been cutting a silver path across the water on the far side, but diving every time I train the binoculars on it and resurfacing far away. Gradually, it paddles closer and I catch enough glimpses to discover that it is a little grebe. The smallest and least flashy of the European grebes, also called a dabchick, is fairly common across the UK's inland waters, but no less charming. Its distinctive summer markers are the coppery cheeks and throat, the pale gape at the bill and the 'powder puff' rear feathers. Both parents build a raft nest, incubate the eggs and feed the chicks, sometimes carrying them on their backs. It is generally shy and spends more time in long dives than flying. Today, though, in an inexplicable change of character, it suddenly lifts its skirts and tears across the lily pads as if running for its life. There is no apparent cause. It plumps down again on the other side, shakes its tail feathers and spirits underwater. The lochan ripples and resettles. All is well. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
BBC News
29-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Watch heron fly free after release from fishing wire
This is the moment a heron was released back into the wild after it was freed from a tangle of fishing Animal Rescue in Nottinghamshire said the bird had "beaten the odds" after it was found trapped and wounded near the Ilkeston canal. Centre co-founder Jon Beresford, who nursed the heron back to health, said he was concerned the bird might struggle but was relieved when it "flew and flew"."It was amazing and made all the hard work worthwhile," Mr Beresford said.
BBC News
27-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Heron tangled in fishing wire released back into wild
A wildlife rescuer has said a heron which was found caught in fishing line managed to beat the odds to be released back into the wild. Brinsley Animal Rescue said it received four or five phone calls a week about wildlife trapped in fishing wire but only managed to rescue one in 20 when Jon Beresford, co-founder of the centre, received a call about a wounded heron trapped in fishing wire at the Ilkeston canal, he did not hold out much hope of a positive he was not only able to capture the bird but nurse it back to health and it has now been released back into the wild. Mr Beresford said: "It's a massive frustration that I get so many calls for ducks, geese and other birds caught in fishing wire and it's very rare that I can do anything. "If they are on or near water, they are very difficult to catch, even if they're tangled, because they just go back into the water where we have no means to catch them. "And when we are able to catch them, they are usually starving or near to the end of life by that point, so by then, the chances are fairly slim."Mr Beresford said it took four days before he was able to get to the heron at Ilkeston Canal, which was left with a wound in its wing and another on its beak. It was then taken to a vet and put on a drip, before rescue centre staff started the process of feeding the heron themselves and allowing it to build up its strength over several weeks. The bird was initially fed on special liquid recovery food, before being force fed fish, until he started eating on his own."Then at the weekend, we decided it was time to see if he could fly," Mr Beresford said. "We took him to our big field, so that if he couldn't make it very far, he'd be easier to catch again."But he just flew and flew. It was amazing and made all the hard work worthwhile."
