That’s a new meaning of the word seige for me. I had to look up (using Google of course) the word for a collection of Herons. As usual you can click on the images to see a larger one on Flickr.
A couple of years ago I saw 5 Herons in the field behind Bradford Amateur Rowing Club near the weir at Hirst Wood. Since then I have only ever seen single Herons – until the last couple of weeks.
Because of the height of the river, towards the end of Sept I decided to go and have a look at the weir at Hirst Wood. The weir at Robert’s Park has been spectacular. The weir at Hirst Wood was equally impressive.
50 yards up river, on the footpath, I spotted a Grey Heron. I managed to get a few shots of it before it flew off. Then 2 flew out of the trees along the river and then another 3. They flew up the hill on the right.
A few days later, 3 Oct., I decided to get down there as quickly as possible at lunch-time, looking for Herons again. On the way up there I spotted this duck, which, at the moment I have no idea what kind.
The field behind the rowing club appeared to be empty until I saw Herons over near the far wall. It also started raining. What a surprise! (You can take that as me being surprised at seeing the Herons and/or being sarcy about the weather)
There were 6 in this field but then I noticed more long necks on the other side of the wall making a total of 13 Grey Herons all within a few feet of each other. Wow. This shot is 5 images stitched together.
An angler walking along the river bank seemed to scare them all over on to the other side of the wall.
So that then they were all quite close to each other in the one field. I have never seen a seige of Herons like this before
They then all flew off into the next field behind Bull Coppy Wood or Fell Wood which put them out of sight.
But they were still arriving.
On the way back I stopped off to take a photo of the weir at Hirst Wood. It looks just like thick liquid caramel. Yummy.
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