Cleared for take off! White faced heron launching!

It is a relatively small heron, pale, slightly bluish-grey, with yellow legs and white facial markings. It can be found almost anywhere near shallow water, fresh or salt.

It was self-introduced to New Zealand in the late 1940s.

The White-faced Heron is locally nomadic and found in both fresh and salty wetlands, farm dams, pastures, grasslands, crops, shores, saltmarsh, tidal mudflats, boat-harbours, beaches, golf courses, orchards or in garden fish-ponds.

They are a light blue and greyish colour with a white face and dark flight feathers along his lighter grey plumage. They have long yellow legs with an elongated neck and a very pointed bill which is also a greyish black color.

Included in their meals are water insects and the larvae, frogs, molluscs, tadpoles, smaller reptiles and when all else fails they will dine on small fish.

They are the most common heron in NZ. This one was down at the Avon Heathcote estuary