I went to Croome this afternoon for another look at the Glossy Ibis, but there was no sign of them either at the lake or out along the ‘river’. It’s possible that they were roosting under cover of vegetation on the island, but given that they’re notorious wanderers I think it’s more likely that they have moved on.
In better news I got a splendid view of this Grey Heron as I walked along the edge of the artificial watercourse, and when the bird in turn caught sight of me and took off, it offered me the opportunity of a really nice flight sequence. I held my thumb on the button I use for eye tracking and just kept shooting, as it crossed the water then flew along the opposite bank to my left before looping back almost over my head, and I wound up with so many potential ‘keepers’ that it’s taken me ages to sort and cull them. This is one of R’s favourites, because he likes the way the bird is framed and highlighted by the dark reed bed behind it.
Grey Herons look so like artists impressions of Pterodactyls that I’ll never not think of them as the missing link between modern day birds and their Jurassic ancestors. It’s interesting to me that within the genus Ardea there are species of large heron from all around the world which are amazingly similar, and at least some of which are closely enough related to be able to interbreed – for example, the Grey Heron is known to be able to hybridise with the Great Egret (Ardea alba), the Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea) and the North American Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), as well as the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta). In fact the Grey Heron, the Great Blue Heron, and the Cocoi Heron of South America (Ardea cocoi) are morphologically so similar that they’re described as a ‘superspecies’, which implies that the biological distinctions between them are pretty minimal. All this makes me wonder if the Ardea herons are so perfectly evolved for the life they live that evolution has effectively stopped within this genus – and if that’s the case, how long ago it might have happened.
