Original air date: 18 November 1998
The image above shows a timeline of what happens in the episode
A more detailed look can be seen below
Selected material:
Black heron tricking fish into shade (10’30-12’50)
The bird makes shade that fish are fooled into believing to be made from plants and swim into the shade (left), only to be stabbed by the bird (right, 10’35-11’37). The companion book (p. 123) has some even more interesting material on a related species – green backed heron in Japan – where it learnt from people feeding the fish and started doing the same thing. It picked up edible things that the fish would eat. It took those to the lake and flicked them onto the surface. When the fish came to take it the heron would take the fish. Similar stories can be found for birds, mainly herons, from around the world (Bird bait-fishing). A similar sequence was included in the Life on Earth series too (Episode 8, Lords of the air, The beak (11′).
The way godwits and avocets eat
Godwits (left) dig deep into the mud. This one has just caught something (ringed) and is about to swallow it. Avocets are further out with their curved bills slightly open to feel for something, like an invertebrate. When they feel it the beak snaps shut.
Coming up: “By now they are all at least four miles out to sea, called there by their parents. Sound, of course, is very important in the life of all birds. It’s the way they communicate. And what they say, and the various ways in which they say it, is what we’ll be looking at in the next programme about The Life 0f Birds.“