I was helping with a lock stoppage open day at Atherstone on the Thursday and when I arrived the work lads (knowing I am of the birding persuasion) started talking to me about a heron that had been present for a couple of days and on that morning was sitting in the paddle hole which is no more than two foot high. We then argued about Grey Heron being too big for the hole and juveniles not born yet then we got too work. A couple of hours later one of the lads shouted me down the towpath to come and look at something and when I was theer he pointed in the tree and there was what I thought was an adult Night Heron. Not ever seeing one before though my other mate used modern technology and googled it on his phone and sure enough, it was. Un ortunately no cameras were available. I was thinking about putting the news on RBA but the towpath was closed to general access for construction works so birders would not be able to get close but I knew that the big lens boys would certainly try so I spoke to some birders in the evening and we decided to not let the information out until the towpath was empty. The news broke on Saturday 21st by a local person so I rang RBA to mention about the no access on site due to H&S but by looking at some photos this has obviously been ignored.
It turns out now the bird has a ring and was originally from Holland. I rang Twycross Zoo on the Thursday night as I thought the bird could have escaped from there but they have no records of Night Herons at there zoo. I wonder where this one has come from????
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