RSPCA launches appeal after heron shot in skull and neck

07/06/2019

An appeal has been made by the RSPCA to find the person responsible for shooting a Grey Heron in the skull and neck with an airgun outside Old Trafford stadium in Greater Manchester. Despite being rushed away for emergency veterinary treatment, the bird had to be put to sleep to end any suffering.

The injured bird was found in a puddle of blood in the middle of Railway Road by Old Trafford, home of mid-table Premier League football club Manchester United, on Sunday 2 June. RSPCA Animal Welfare Officer (AWO) Steve Wickham was sent to the incident and could see blood coming from the bird's head. Having swiftly been taken to a vet, an x-ray revealed that the heron had been shot in the skull and in the neck. 

The bird also had a broken leg so the vet decided to put it to sleep. Wickham said: "The bird was alive and stood in a pool of his own blood when I picked him up but I didn’t know what had caused the injuries until he was x-rayed. He must have been suffering terribly with severe wounds to the skull and neck. 

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Museum volunteers discover new species of extinct heron at North Florida fossil site

by Halle Marchese • May 16, 2019

When the bones of an ancient heron were unearthed at a North Florida fossil site, the find wasn’t made by researchers but by two Florida Museum of Natural History volunteers.

A previously unknown genus and species, the heron has been named Taphophoyx hodgei (TAFF’-oh-foy-ks HAHJ’-ee-eye) in honor of landowner Eddie Hodge, who has allowed Florida Museum researchers and volunteers to excavate the site on his property near Williston since his granddaughter first discovered fossils there in 2015.

Nearly 700 volunteers have worked at the Montbrook fossil site, collectively digging more than 12,000 hours.

“You couldn’t have a better group of people,” Hodge said. “There’s a lot of negativity when we get home and turn on the television, but it does you good to be out here seeing volunteers get excited and be positive about something.”

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‘Jurassic Park’ Bird Spotted in Greece (photos)

By

 Tasos Kokkinidis

Social media users in Greece were left scratching their heads after a picture of a scary flying animal resembling a scene from Jurassic Park went viral.

The enormous-looking avian was photographed on Wednesday near Crete’s Ierapetra.

The initial excitement of what some believed to be a sighting of a prehistoric bird was dampened when it later emerged through new photos that the bird in question was a heron.

The herons are long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 64 recognized species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons.

Although herons resemble birds in some other families, such as the storks, ibises, spoonbills, and cranes, they differ from these in flying with their necks retracted, not outstretched.

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Man 'killed heron to save duckling'

27 March 2018

A man who killed a heron to rescue a duckling it had just swallowed has been cautioned by police.

North Wales Police tweeted that in saving the young bird, the elderly man from the Pwllheli area "was then left with a dead heron".

The force's Rural Crime Team added: "You couldn't make this up."

Officers said he shot the heron dead with an air gun, then cut it open to rescue the duckling, which was still alive in the heron's stomach.

Wildlife charity the RSPB said all birds were protected by law with fines or jail sentences issued for offences. The maximum penalties for killing a heron are a fine of up to £5,000, and up to six months in prison.

The man voluntarily confessed to the RSPB following the incident in 2017.

Police said he was given a minor punishment because he was regarded as vulnerable and had no previous convictions.

Source  

Women rescue ice-encrusted heron near Merrimack River

By Lisa Kashinsky Staff Writer

Jan 5, 2018

Paul Bilodeau

LAWRENCE — Christine Comforti had barely been at work for a half-hour Friday when she looked outside the window of her Marston Street medical office and saw a bird that looked like it was struggling to fly.

“He was standing on two feet trying to fly and he just kept face-planting over and over in the snow,” Comforti said.

It was unlike anything Comforti had seen before, awkward and painful to watch, she said. The bird, a great blue heron, finally mustered the strength to lift itself into the air, reaching about three feet near the Merrimack River, before falling back into the deep snow from Thursday's storm, Comforti said.

Comforti jumped into action, pulling on the boots she'd taken off minutes before, and running outside with a blanket. Jeannette Mercado, a co-worker at Boston Eye Group, followed her to help.

“I was crying. I was like, 'I can't leave him here. I can't watch him die,'” Comforti said.

The heron was a frightening sight. Encrusted in ice from its feet to its beak, the bird was “completely an icicle,” she said.

At first, the struggling bird looked like it was going to attack Comforti. But once she managed to wrap the bird's face in the blanket, she said it seemed to understand she was trying to help.

“It hurt to see him hurting,” she said.

Comforti and her co-workers got the bird inside their office and quickly went to work thawing it out with blankets and space heaters. Comforti, who has no experience caring for birds, chipped ice off the heron with her own hands to avoid burning the bird with the heaters. She cleared the bird's beak so it could open its mouth, and removed ice from the bird's talons and the back of its legs.

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Birds of a feather feed together as cranes pass food to wild heron

By NAOYUKI MORI/ Staff Writer

November 22, 2017 at 18:05 JST

HIMEJI, Hyogo Prefecture--A pair of cranes are causing amazement by feeding a wild gray heron through their enclosure by the beak, a rare sight even for experts.

The act of compassion between species at Himeji City Zoo here has drawn a crowd at weekends.

The young gray heron appears almost daily in front of the cranes’ pen around 11 a.m. when the captive birds are fed treats of mackerel.

“I have never heard of such a story,” said Hiroyuki Masatomi, an expert in Japanese crane biology.

“(Feeding) is supposed to be an act between parents and their offspring. The cranes probably treat the gray heron as a substitute.”

The female crane, Ku, and male Sho are both 30 years old, a very advanced age in human terms.

The pair previously started to pass food to another wild gray heron around summer 1993 until the bird stopped visiting them around 2011.

The gray heron that is being fed is thought to be a different individual. It started to visit the cranes in late October, and has continued to return ever since.

“We want visitors to witness this rare sight with warm eyes,” said a zookeeper.

Source  

Watch this greedy bird down bacon and sausages in Llanberis - and give Iolo Williams one of the biggest shocks of his career

The TV naturalist reckons the sight of a heron being hand-fed sausages was on a par with 'seeing a whale for the first time'

TV presenter Iolo Williams was left stunned by an extraordinary wildlife encounter in the unlikely surroundings of Llanberis.

For his latest TV series he came across a cheeky heron that pays a daily visit to a back yard in the village.

For several years Ifan Rowlands has been hand feeding the friendly bird a diet of bacon and sausages.

“One of the great pleasures of this work is that, from time to time, you encounter something totally unexpected, something you’ve never seen before,” said Iolo.

Video here

Keep your her-on, Prime Minister

An avian security breach at 10 Downing Street should make us glad we do not face the venemous intrusions familiar in Australia

By Telegraph View

9:00PM BST 28 May 2015

Everyone, or everyone of normal human sympathies, was interested by the photograph of a stray heron that yesterday wandered into the entrance hall of 10 Downing Street. Wild animals seldom do take refuge indoors, let alone within such important doors.

Photo: Ramsay Jones

Birds may in any case be unintentionally subversive, living in their own world, close to ours but quite separate from it for the most part. Luckily, though, a rook down the chimney or a heron in the hall is about as bad as it gets in Britain. Not for us the funnel web under the loo seat or the alligator on the putting green.

Yesterday’s incident is unlikely to trigger a wave of invading herons. Unlike the tits that used to peck the tops off milk bottles or the sparrows that plague Italian cafe tables, herons have no reputation for mass trespass. Don’t panic, should be the response, or keep your her-on.

Source

Heron put down in Thirsk after shotgun wound

A heron has had to be put down after a shotgun pellet shattered the bird's wing, North Yorkshire Police said.

The injured bird was found by the side of the road in Dalton, near Richmond, on Tuesday and was taken to a wildlife haven in Thirsk for treatment but it could not be saved.

An X-ray showed a shotgun pellet had shattered its wing and two pellet wounds to the bird's body.

Herons are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said anyone who kills a heron could face a fine or even a prison sentence.

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After eye surgery on blind bird, hopes soar

HOLLYWOOD — 

The patient arrived in a cage, feathers ruffled, blind in both eyes. 

Medically, the challenge was unprecedented. But the surgeon did not blink. 

In a delicate, microscopic procedure that may have been the first of its kind, veterinary ophthalmologist Robert Swinger stitched tiny pieces of pig bladder onto the ruptured corneas of a great blue heron on Thursday in an effort to restore the bird's sight. 

"It was stressful, and there was not a lot of room for error," said Swinger, 35, after a tedious two-hour operation on the leggy, anesthetized wading bird at the Hollywood Animal Hospital. "But the patient was excellent. I think it went well." 

The bird — North America's largest heron, common throughout the Florida along shores and in wetlands — became the guinea pig for groundbreaking eye surgery after it was found in Lake Worth two weeks ago, too weak to stand and with ulcers in both eyes. 

Continued: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/fl-bird-eye-surgery-20130314,0,5054463.story

Bird uses piece of bread as bait to catch fish (video)

The other day I posted a video of an invasive catfish on the Tarn River that hunts pigeons.

While we all know that birds hunt fish, not as many people may know that some birds use bait to hunt fish. Apologies in advance to the bird experts who have seen this before, and the vegetarians who got upset when I posted the video of the serial killer catfish. But it’s an astonishing video.

I think this may be a green heron, but if anyone knows for sure, drop it in the comments.

http://americablog.com/2012/12/bird-goes-fishing-with-bread.html

Scottish man convicted of illegally trapping heron

£1,500 fine for setting trap

October 2012. A man has been convicted of illegally trapping a heron following a joint investigation with the Scottish SPCA and Dumfries and Galloway Police.

Simon Duffin, 61, of Morrinton, admitted recklessly injuring the bird in a trap, setting in position a trap likely to cause injury to a wild bird and setting in position a trap likely to cause bodily injury to any animal, contrary to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, at Cargenglen Trout Farm. Duffin was fined £1,500.

A member of the public discovered the injured heron in water with a fenn spring trap (Spring loaded trap) around its leg. Unfortunately, this had resulted in such a severe injury that the kindest and only humane option was for the bird to be put to sleep to end any further suffering.

Scottish SPCA Chief Superintendent Mike Flynn said, "We welcome the fact that Duffin now has a criminal conviction for these serious offences. Duffin had set four fenn traps at the side of a fish pond and they were not tunnelled as required by law. The heron was caused a great deal of pain, suffering and distress as a result. We would like to thank Dumfries and Galloway Police for their assistance in this investigation and Procurator Fiscal Pamela Rhodes for her determination in pursuing this case."

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/fenn-trap.html

ENTANGLED: Rescuers respond to birds ensnared in fishing line

Fishing line and birds can be a deadly combination.

On Thursday morning, Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge received a call from Destin Yacht Club, alerting them that a great blue heron was tangled in fishing line in a tree behind the yacht club, Stephanie Kadletz, wildlife health supervisor at Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge, told The Log.

Debbie Edwards, who’s on the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge’s board of directors, responded to the call. After arriving on scene, she could not immediately assist the bird because it was about 40 feet up in a tree.

While Coastline Tree Service in Destin scrambled to the scene with their bucket truck, Kadletz said the bird, which was standing in the tree, when it lost its footing and then went limp.

Edwards choked back tears as she described the incident to The Log.

“Basically, he ended up slipping and hanging himself,” Edwards said.

She said that he was in really bad shape and that even if they had gotten him down before he “expired,” his chances of survival were slim.
“When we got this guy down basically he had a fish hook in his mouth that was wrapped around the tree and he couldn’t free himself,” Edwards said. “If I thought I could climb the tree and get to him I would have, but I would’ve just put myself in danger.”

Edwards said that about 75 percent of the herons and pelicans the ECWR sees come in with fishing line injuries.

Read on: http://thedestinlog.com/news/entangled-rescuers-respond-to-birds-ensnared-in-fishing-line-1.18907