My copy of the HARA Summer Newsletter was delivered yesterday.   Thanks, Linda for asking me to write a little piece for publication.   My topic was about encountering a heron on an early morning walk by the burn at Hatton.   I thought I would it would be a good idea to put the heron pictures here so that people can see them in colour and to reprint the text of the article for those not fortunate enough to receive the HARA Newsletter.

Wetlands Wildlife

Some of the best photographs are not planned but depend on the quick reaction of the photographer.  I had no intention of photographing this heron.  I was walking in the field beside Park View, near the marshy area (described on the map as a pond),  which I have decided to call the Hatton Wetlands.   There was a heron watching out for “puddocks in the seggs.”   He saw me just as I saw him and he took off.  I just had time to catch him in my lens.

My neighbour tells me there is lots of wildlife there – mink in the burn, frogs in the wetlands and of course the heron.  I have seen a buzzard there too, and during that early morning walk, a couple of Mallard ducks swimming in the water.  Hatton has lots of wildlife.

By the way, the reference to the “puddocks in the seggs” is a quotation from a poem by Charles Murray which I learned in primary school called,  “The Whistle”.

He missed the craggit heron nabbin’ puddocks in the seggs.

( For those without the Doric – the poem tells of a herd boy in days gone by who did not notice a heron who was hunting for frogs in the sedge, because he was too busy playing on his home made whistle.)

But I didn’t miss my heron!

[Reprinted from the Hatton Area Residents Association Newsletter – Summer 2013]