Posted by Duncan on April 18, 2002 at 14:35:54 from 205.188.197.36:
In Reply to: Heronry posted by Andy Morley on April 16, 2002 at 20:13:57:
Almost certainly a heron, yes.
They do have yellow beaks, and you can quite often see them in a field 'frogging' (indeed was there not a heron 'frogging' in a field early on in Coot Club itself or have I imagined that?) They don't tend to go VERY far from water (and neither do the frogs!) but if there were a ditch or a small stream somewhere within a couple of fields, I wouldn't be that surprised. The only question is the 'distinctive rectangular bar' - I didn't expect that! But the colour scheme generally sounds right (yellow beak, mid to light grey back) - was there quite a bit of white on it (around the neck, etc?) They can sometimes seem fatter than their usual scraggy selves. By 'browned off' do you mean it had a rather 'cross' expression (herons often do because of their severe 'eyebrows').
Hope that's of some use.
Just for fun 'heron-like' migrants that it could be (but wasn't, from the description) are: egrets (either little (all white and smaller than a heron, with a dark beak), cattle (I haven't got a picture of a cattle egret to hand - you never know, but I suspect they'd have a dark beak) or a few other kinds) or a White Stork (enormous, red beak and leggs, and black and white rather than grey).
I suspect it was a 'frogging' heron.
Duncan