24 Sept, 2008

Close by, a Chinese pond-heron stalks its prey with piercing eyes and great intent.

Today I spent the morning searching the Beung Sie Fie swamp (in Thailand) for egrets and other waterbirds. I wanted to find a suitable location to set up my hide, and by lunchtime I had found a likely spot.

I noticed a number of egrets feeding in the corner of a paddy field and when I approached them I could see and hear that there were a lot of fish splashing in the water. Happily there was a field shelter in the corner of the field where I wanted to film, so I set up my hide inside this shelter.

Field shelters are generally wooden platforms with tin roofs and no walls. They are great places for observing wildlife, especially birds, because you are sheltered from both sun and rain, and the wildlife is accustomed to having a structure in that place, so it doesn't appear to bother them at all. Of course, the initial approach and setting up of the hide scares the birds away, but within an hour they were already beginning to move closer, and after two hours they were close enough to film.

Most of the birds that I filmed were little egrets (Egretta garzetta). These are distinguished by being shorter in stature than other egrets, and having a grey beak and yellow feet, at least in the adults.

They are active hunters, stalking fish, crustaceans and insects, which they catch with a rapid stabbing action of the beak.

Today I saw one catch a fish that seemed to stick in its throat and it was several minutes before it was able to get back to feeding again. I was also visited by a few of the larger intermediate egrets (Egretta intermedia).

These are about 10cm (4in) taller than the little egrets and have a yellow beak with a grey tip.

This later feature distinguishes them from the great egret (Egretta alba), which has a yellow beak. Sometimes egrets of various species roost together in great numbers and I am hoping to film this once the rainy season is over. While hunting they are often gregarious, but can still also be found in ones and twos.

The egrets came closer and closer to me but at one point seemed to notice the end of my lens moving through the hole in the hide and took off together.

They didn't go far and fortunately weren't joined in their retreat by a Chinese pond-heron (Ardeola bacchus) that I had been watching for some time as it gradually came closer to me.

I now switched my attention to filming this beautiful bird as it stalked its prey with piercing eyes. In the end the pond-heron came right up to my hiding place and I was able to film it full-frame.

I love the flecked markings on the neck and breast of this bird. This is its non-breeding plumage, which changes considerably during the breeding season.

All in all I was in the hide for three hours and was delighted to get such close footage during a relatively short period.

– by Darryl Sweetland, Earth-Touch crew © Earth-Touch

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