Black-crowned Night-heron

Black-crowned Night-heron

I am a simple soul at heart and basically one good bird, in this case a Black-crowned Night-heron, was enough to raise my spirits and restore morale following the weekend debâcle. I usually head out for an hour after work on Wednesdays and this week was no exception.  The Night-heron was perched on a tree at the beginning of the access road into local rice paddy. It was particularly gratifying to manage to get a couple of decent shots as well.

Black-crowned Night-heron

The Black-crowned Night-heron was no more than 200 metres from my home as the crow flies, as it were! Sadly not in the soi and not visible from it so I can not add it to that list. However it was nicely perched and had the sun on it and I was able to get between the two. I walked towards the bird 10 paces at a time, shot and moved in another ten paces. I was trying to get beyond the bird to minimise the effect of the branch. This worked as I managed to get reasonably close to the bird before it decided enough was enough.The squawk was its limit and off he went.

I have seen a fair number of these Night-herons around the local rice-paddy, but normally they are in the air. This is the first one that has posed for me. It is reasonably common but nevertheless a good-looking bird. I like the contrast of its orange iris with the rest of the bird's colour.