Grey Heron

The grey heron is a large wading bird, standing up to 1m tall and 84–102cm long, with a wingspan of 155–195cm and a weight of 1–2kg. It is ashy grey above and greyish-white below with some black on the flanks. The head and neck are white, with a broad black stripe from the eye to a slender, dangling black crest and bluish-black streaks down the front of the neck. The long, powerful bill is pinkish-yellow, brighter when breeding, the eye yellow and the legs brown. Its main call is a loud croaking fraaank (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives around lakes, rivers, ponds, marshes and sea coasts and feeds mostly on aquatic animals, catching them by standing motionless beside or in the water or by stalking through the shallows. It breeds colonially in heronries, usually high in trees, and both parents incubate the usually three to five bluish-green eggs for about 25 days; chicks fledge at seven to eight weeks. Northern birds migrate south in autumn (Wikipedia, general species account).