Black-crowned Night Heron. River Calder, Ossett, West Yorkshire. DSC_0415.jpg

            Oh bugger, I slightly altered the image and my laboriously scripted description has just disappeared. Not sure I have the energy to attempt to rewrite it! Here goes:

Yesterday, I finally made the trip to Ossett to see the remaining bird of the two vagrant birds that originally appeared there. It was a dull and overcast morning, but I planned my arrival as the weather brightened up and the sun came out. Sadly, the bird didn't come out, but slept, slightly hidden behind stems amongst the riverside vegetation, from my arrival at circa 1:20 through to 5:30 pm, as befits the species name and habits, occasionally eliciting false hopes, waking to briefly preen, or glance around, before dozing off once again.

It was a sunny but blustery afternoon, chilly in the cold wind, with gusts that made holding camera and lens focus quite challenging.

The bird finally roused itself after 4+ hours, to clumsily and very deliberately clamber down to the river's edge, to again stand cunningly and inconsiderately behind stems and shoots of vegetation, observing the water statue-like, only moving to efficiently snatch an occasional Minnow from the shallows as in this shot.

Photo subtly cropped to exclude the assorted plastic bottles, paper cups and other debris that littered the bank and river's edge! The funny thing was I didn't even see the bird on arrival there, wasn't sure amongst all the scraps of plastic hanging in the vegetation! 

Having outlasted the half dozen other visitors, I eventually abandoned hope, succumbed to the conditions and left at 7 pm, tottering off with my gear and almost breaking my neck getting past the metal storage tank limiting access and forming a makeshift stile on the path downstream; finally accepting that this was not going to be a day when I got clear views and shots of this super UK vagrant with its amazing red eye. :-)

Thanks for your comments and faves.

Taken in: UK / England / Ossett (show map)

Taken on: April 19, 2023

Tags:

Black-crowned Night Heron

Nycticorax nycticorax

Ossett

West Yorkshire

River Calder

Britain

bird

birds

nature

wildlife

Nikon

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Sets appears in: • Herons

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Camera: Nikon Z 9, f/6.3, 1/800 sec, 700mm, ISO 800 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon Z 9
Lens:	VR 500mm f/4E
Aperture:	f/6.3
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Focal Length:	700mm
ISO:	800
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	Low gain up
Saturation:	High
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 12.2.1 (Macintosh)
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