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Hovering Night Herons (1 Viewer)

RecoveringScot

Well-known member
In May 1991, at Lake Apolyont, Turkey, I saw 4 or 5 Night Herons Nycticorax nycticorax 'hovering', that is: hanging into the (fresh) wind about 25 feet above the surface of the lake, without moving far (a few inches side to side) and without beating their wings. This was carried out for a considerable period (at least 10-15 minutes). They were still doing it when I moved on. I have have not heard of this behaviour in any heron before. Has anyone else?

Cheers
 
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In May 1991, at Lake Apolyont, Turkey, I saw 4 or 5 Night Herons Nycticorax nycticorax 'hovering', that is: hanging into the (fresh) wind about 25 feet above the surface of the lake, without moving far (a few inches side to side) and without beating their wings. This was carried out for a considerable period (at least 10-15 minutes). They were still doing it when I moved on. I have have not heard of this behaviour in any heron before. Has anyone else?

I've certainly never observed it, and I see Black-crowned Night Herons (and Snowy Egrets) just about every day.
 
I've certainly never observed it, and I see Black-crowned Night Herons (and Snowy Egrets) just about every day.

It seemed most un-heron like. What was the purpose of it? A feeding strategy (rather than walking through water, scanning it from above)? All very mysterious to me at the time, and now.


Cheers
 
In May 1991...

Have you been thinking about this for the last 26 years before finally posting? ;)

But to add to the comments already posted, I too despite seeing a lot of Night Herons at assorted localities around the world, have never seen anything vaguely similar. Surely a sighting something rather unique
 
Here's all that BNA-online has to say on the subject--

"Of 38 feeding behaviors, night-herons are known to use 8: Standing, Bill Vibrating, Standing Fly-catching, Walking Slowly, Hovering, Plunging, Feet-first Diving, and Swimming Feeding (Kushlan 1976, 1978, Kushlan and Hancock 2005)."

And here's one of the cited articles--
http://www.heronconservation.org/resources/Behavior_Terminology.pdf

But nothing is said in either source about hovering at such a height. Maybe your birds were reconnoitering, looking for concentrations of fish or other prey that they could drop down upon and catch by "conventional" low-level hovering?
 
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Hi,



If the herons could sustain flight at no cost (in terms of energy), there might not have been any immediate purpose.

I presume the herons were relying on ridge lift to soar?

Regards,

Henning


Hi Henning,

No. My memory of the terrain at that spot is that it is relatively flat, with slight undulations, and the herons were a good bit onto the lake, so I assumed they were just using the strength of the wind, rather fresh to strong but not gusty, to remain aloft. They did not 'soar' as such, remaining at much the same altitude all the time when I was there.

A Short-toed Eagle on the other side of the lake was using the ridge of a small hill to soar. It was a moderately hot day, not too excessive.
 
Here's all that BNA-online has to say on the subject--

"Of 38 feeding behaviors, night-herons are known to use 8: Standing, Bill Vibrating, Standing Fly-catching, Walking Slowly, Hovering, Plunging, Feet-first Diving, and Swimming Feeding (Kushlan 1976, 1978, Kushlan and Hancock 2005)."

And here's one of the cited articles--
http://www.heronconservation.org/resources/Behavior_Terminology.pdf

But nothing is said in either source about hovering at such a height. Maybe your birds were reconnoitering, looking for concentrations of fish or other prey that they could drop down upon and catch by "conventional" low-level hovering?

Thanks for that. Aerial flycatching is mentioned in the pdf, but I saw no 'lunging' which one would expect if the birds were catching insects. The hovering mentioned doesn't seem to be silmilar to what I saw.

Cheers
 
Have you been thinking about this for the last 26 years before finally posting? ;)

But to add to the comments already posted, I too despite seeing a lot of Night Herons at assorted localities around the world, have never seen anything vaguely similar. Surely a sighting something rather unique

To be honest I probably meant to do something like write a note for BB when I got back home, but you know how things are.

I was reading a tweet about Night Herons nesting in the UK today, and somehow that old memory popped into my head. I can visualise what I saw then quite clearly, give or take a few details. I'm stll mystified. I remember thinking at the time 'This is a bit odd'. I remember seeing Purple and Grey Herons soaring at Apolyont in visits, but that was proper soaring, circling around each other and gaining height.
 
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