It’s not often that the stars are in alignment for a midweek paddle but occasionally it happens. Children elsewhere, being forced to make music for 48 straight hours; the car (or “kayak transportation device” as I prefer to call it) sitting there unused and no pressing work engagements before 9 am on a Wednesday morning.
Berowra Creek was delightfully quiet, save for a handful of tinnies bearing estuarine commuters towards the wharf and the road to the big smoke roundabout 7 o’clock. I guess that’s rush hour on the Hawkesbury.
Pre-dawn rush at the Berowra Creek ferry
A peaceful river, low tide… time for the shy critters to come out of the mangroves and feast in the mud.
Juvenile striated heron with a tiny fish
I go past the mouth of Joe Crafts Bay quite regularly. It’s a magical place, blessed with reflections and rolling fog, and a secret creek filled with darting fish.
Looking to Joe Crafts Bay on a misty day
I’m always expecting to see something exotic there, like the critically endangered Eastern Curlew, visiting Australian coast during the northern winter after an epic migration from Russia and western China.  Mostly I see bird-shaped sticks. But on this quiet morning, what I initially suspected to be a stick turned out not one, but two striated herons.
Juvenile striated heron pretending no one is looking
It’s pretty unusual to get a good look at these birds, described on one twitcher website, unnecessarily cruelly I think, as “a dumpy little heron with a large head“. Or if you were really mean you might describe it as a dumpy little heron with a jack-in-the-box neck.
Juvenile striated heron with neck stretch
I normally spot striated herons only after I’ve already bugged them enough to burst out of their hiding places in the mangroves and fly off, disgruntled, down the river.
Adult striated heron perching at high tide
They are not given to making a lot of noise and hunt stealthily, perched on a low branch over shallow water or creeping along the shoreline looking for little fish, crabs or crustaceans. Interestingly, they sometimes also fish with bait – dropping a feather or leaf on the water to lure fish to the surface to investigate. These birds seem to be quite smart – researchers have even recorded youngsters playing with bugs, fruit and pieces of wood – perhaps practicing for bait fishing.
But for all their creativity, young herons like most juvenile birds, seem to be a little bit slow on the uptake when they unexpectedly encounter a mammal in a boat. And long may that stupidity continue.
Pensive looking juvenile striated heron
There was also an adult bird on this particular mudflat, clever enough to stay a lot further away.
Adult striated heron, macroryncha subspecies
And while the adult wasn’t incredibly impressed with me being in its territory, it was really very pissed off that it was having to share its patch of low tide real estate with a young heron. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Heron Conservation group – an impressively specialised body – African striated herons are so determined to defend their territory that you only find a couple of individuals in a 13 kilometre stretch of river. Our aggro Aussie adult, true to form, went after the youngster no less than three times while I was watching, chasing it off the prime spots on the mudflat with real venom.
Adult striated heron chasing off a juvenile off his feeding grounds
Not so the adult could hunt. Oh no. Youngster was finding fine pickings. But having cleared him out, the adult heron did this:
Nada. Played a game of statues. Or maybe pretended to be a stick for the benefit of nosy kayakers. It’s always pleasing to see birds behaving as expected. Here we see an “adult… freez[ing] when disturbed; standing motionless with their bill… at 45 degrees”
I was surprised to find that the striated heron, shy and retiring as it is, has been described as “one of the more cosmopolitan herons“, which suggests somehow it has well-used hand luggage tucked away in the mangroves somewhere and frequent flyer points. Sub-species (in an attractive range of colours) are found right around the world – from Africa, Madagascar, the islands of the Indian Ocean, East Asia, and South America.
Adult striated heron stepping out
Australian striated herons – both the east coast macroryncha, grey with perhaps a flush of wine colour on its underparts, and the reddish-brown stagnatilis which living in the north west – are a bit fussier than many overseas subspecies, living pretty much exclusively in coastal areas in and around mangroves. That’s quite different to the rarer but to my untutored eye somewhat similar looking black bittern that is found along forested rivers, like the Wyong River where I spotted this one, and even rivers much further inland.
If you’re kind of fussy about where you live, Joe Crafts Bay seems a tremendous place to end up. No wonder the grumpy grownup wants to keep it to himself.
Joe Crafts Bay at its magical best
More adventures on the Hawkesbury
A visit with the eagles of Mooney Mooney Creek
Magic scenes on a cold and foggy day on Cowan Water
The silver river – up Marramarra Creek
Of gods and map readers – into Muogamarra National Park
Two sad islands, three whistling kites – a visit to Barr Island