As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday 29 May 2015

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


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.

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