White Heron or Kotuku

Visiting the Sanctuary Ponds this morning I was delighted to see that one of my favourite birds had also chosen to visit this lovely spot. This greater egret, or white heron/Kotuku as we know it here, was idly fishing in the pond between bouts of preening. The white heron is quite rare in New Zealand with less than 200 birds in total and only one spot on the West Coast of the South Island where they breed, which is why we get quite excited when we see one.

This is not a breeding bird. The beak is black in a breeding bird and they have long lacy plumes down their back.

Which makes this one’s behaviour today interesting. He was picking up sticks and carrying them around in his beak as though it was some form of courtship or nesting behaviour. Every so often he would accidently stand on the end of the stick and drop it, then he would fish around in the water, pick it up and carry on - until he eventually lost interest. There was a lot of sky gazing going on too with long neck and head stretched to the sky.

I have included some shots of the stick carrying behaviour in the hope that some of you who are familiar with the egret family can explain what he was up to with these long sticks.

My time with the heron was cut short by an elderly gentleman who brought his grandchild to feed the ducks and started throwing bread into the water right beside the heron. It made no difference to him that I was standing there too, with camera to the eye. Some people!