When is a rarity not a rarity? When it’s an escape, of course. Reader and birdwatcher Mark Maddox sent us this intriguing account of an unusual bird that briefly had Midlands listers’ hearts a-flutter…
A text alert of a local Night Heron is enough to rouse anyone out of bed on a Saturday morning. So it was that a couple of dozen bleary-eyed birders stood by a stretch of the Coventry Canal in Atherstone on January 20, looking at one of the best local records in living memory.
The bush telegraph and pagers soon produced a flourishing throng of twitchers. Elation gave way to apprehension, though, when it stretched a leg revealing a ring – was it captive or wild rung?
When the word ‘zoo’ could be made out, disappointment set in, but when it was fully deciphered from a zoomed-in photo as ‘Burger’s Zoo, Arnhem’, it became interesting again. Clearly now a captive bird, could it really have flown across the North Sea from the Netherlands after escaping? Most escapees do not travel very far, their lack of natural conditioning and companions meaning that they are unsure exactly what to do. Maybe this had been a wild-caught bird and had retained some wild instinctive behaviour, but why fly due east, away from its natural range?
Those present expressed astonishment at its apparent place of origin, and I was intrigued enough to look up the number for Burger’s Zoo and phone in the ring number.
Bird Curator Simona Kools revealed that 12730 had fledged at Arnhem in 2009 and transferred to Twycross Zoo, Leicestershire, later that year. I was referred to Twycross’s Records Officer, Pat Milham. She confirmed that 12730 was indeed their bird, but they were unaware of the successful escape attempt, and intent on recapturing the errant heron.
Twycross is only six or seven miles from Atherstone, and the bird had not exhibited unusual migration behaviour for an escapee, so at least that conundrum was solved. There simply remained the small matter of catching and returning the bird to its enclosure
