I'm delighted to be able to say that I've since ID'd this bird as a NIGHT HERON.
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| Night Heron [February 2013] |
How? All thanks to iSpot.
I can't remember where I first heard of this website although I think it was on a radio programme. It's a site that allows you to post your sightings of species and get help to ID them. I tried it with this bird and found the interface pretty simple to use. You can see the results here.
Needless to say, as well as being delighted at getting the ID, I was ecstatic to discover it was a night heron, which is a species I'd never heard of before.
It turns out night herons are actually fairly common globally although not native to the UK and rarely seen as far north as Scotland.
One of the commenters on iSpot offered an amazing explanation for my sighting, which is that Edinburgh Zoo has a pair of "free-flying" night herons. These herons actually escaped from the zoo in the 1980s but have returned over 20 years later (!) to become regular visitors and nick fish from the sea lion. They know they are the same pair that escaped because of the rings on their legs, which you can see in my photo.
Absolutely fascinating stuff!
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