Scientific name: Ardea cinerea
The grey heron is a large bird, standing up to 100 cm (39 in) tall and measuring 84–102 cm (33–40 in) long with a 155–195 cm (61–77 in) wingspan. The plumage is largely ashy-grey above, and greyish-white below with some black on the flanks. Adults have the head and neck white with a broad black supercilium that terminates in the slender, dangling crest, and bluish-black streaks on the front of the neck. The scapular feathers are elongated and the feathers at the base of the neck are also somewhat elongated. Immature birds lack the dark stripe on the head and are generally duller in appearance than adults, with a grey head and neck, and a small, dark grey crest. The pinkish-yellow beak is long, straight and powerful, and is brighter in colour in breeding adults. The iris is yellow and the legs are brown and very long.
Occurs across much of the Old World, from western Scandinavia, Britain and the Iberian Peninsula to sub-Saharan Africa. In southern Africa it is most abundant in Zimbabwe, northern and eastern Botswana and South Africa, while also occupying patches of Namibia and Mozambique. It generally favours shallow water bodies, such as estuaries, lagoons, rivers, lakes, the intertidal zone, marshes and dams.
It mainly eats fish, using three different hunting techniques: it can wait at one spot for prey to come within striking distance; it can walk carefully through shallow water before ambushing prey, or it just drops into the water from the air. Once it catches something, it manipulates the first to a head-first position before swallowing it.
