The night heron: at home on the Somerset Levels
The news that night herons had bred in Britain for the first time barely registered on the ornithological Richter scale. Perhaps this was because it happened on the Somerset Levels, the UK’s new hotspot for long-legged wading birds.
Over the past couple of decades, first little egret, then little bittern, great white and cattle egrets, and now night herons, have flown across the Channel. Many ended up on the Somerset Levels, liked what they saw, and settled down here. Meanwhile, bitterns came over from East Anglia, while cranes were given a helping hand from us, via a reintroduction scheme. Now that we can see five or six of these exotic newcomers in a day, we have become rather blase about them.
Yet I can remember when the arrival of a new British breeding bird was a major event. During the whole of my childhood, apart from introduced birds such as Lady Amherst’s pheasant and ring-necked parakeet creeping on to the official British List, only a handful of truly wild species managed to colonise the UK.
Some, like the Mediterranean gull and Cetti’s warbler, stayed the course. But most didn’t. These included the snowy owls that bred on the Shetland island of Fetlar for a few years in the 1960s and 70s, before retreating north as climate change took hold.
We know that the same warming trend that stopped the snowy owls in their tracks is partly responsible for so many waterbird species extending their ranges into southern Britain. But having arrived, they would never have colonised successfully if it weren’t for the habitat created out of disused former peatworks.
“Build it, and they will come,” as the saying goes, and that’s exactly what has happened. Acres of devastated land, scarred by peat digging, have been transformed into homes for wetland birds.
So it’s good to know that all that hard work – from professional conservationists and volunteers –
has finally been rewarded. In last month’s national lottery awards, the Avalon Marshes project beat 1,300 other schemes, to be named the UK’s best environment project.
But although what is happening in the West Country is good news, the bigger picture shows the negative consequences of climate change. In Scotland, seabird numbers are plummeting as sand eels head north in response to warming seas. And in the Scottish Highlands, Arctic birds such as the ptarmigan and snow bunting are also under threat. So while I celebrate the events in my neck of the woods, I worry that our gains will be outweighed by losses elsewhere.
Back here in Somerset, the day the news of the night herons broke I wandered along to Westhay Moor, hoping to catch a glimpse of one. As its name suggests, this is a largely nocturnal species, so the best time to see one is at dawn or dusk.
As the sun began to set, I waited, along with the two local birders who had found the birds in the first place. Then, just as I was about to give up and head home, a single night heron – small, stocky and broad-winged, with a heavy bill – flew overhead. A brief, but still incredibly special, moment. I will certainly never take a pioneering bird such as this for granted.