Reef heron and little black shag

[Raewyn]

On our recent trip to Spirits Bay I watched the reef heron that was active at the beach/creek/lagoon on a number of days. (I did see two together once so over the three weeks we were there "the" heron could actually be either.)

On 8th March, the reef heron was fishing on edge of the rocky side of the lagoon, near the beach, and there was also a single little black shag present. The shag was fishing in the shallows, at times only a few metres from the heron. The fish there are mullet that school all through the lagoon. As well as hundreds of tiny ones along the edges, there were always several schools of fish about 15-20cms in the slightly deeper water.

I was intrigued by what appeared to be the shag herding the fish into the shallows where the heron took full advantage of the opportunity. I've seen little black shags fishing cooperatively elsewhere, and have seen pied shags join in before, but this is the first time it appeared that a shag was interacting with a non-shag. I realise it could be coincidence with the large number of fish present, but I was also able to follow the action when they moved upstream to the corner of the deeper part of the lagoon where there weren't so many fish, or at least the fish had a better chance of heading into deep water to escape.

I did mention it to another birder who had seen similar behaviour elsewhere, but I also thought it might be interesting to document here. Apologies for the photos not being better. The heron is a lot less flighty than it used to be but I was still trying to keep well out of sight and not hinder the action.

{After posting, I see that the photos are just showing as thumbnails and I can't figure out how to make them full size inline - or is it the upgrade that has changed how they appear?].

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Nest observation. The aquatic version of winter mixed flocks of forest birds that are now seen far less often.
Re thumbnails: if you click the thumbnails they expand to full size. if you place then inline (you should be able to do that in the attachment tab) they will be full size.

[Raewyn]

Thanks Neil. I like the idea of "aquatic version of winter mixed flocks of forest birds". I must look out for other examples.
Re the thumbnails, I did click on <inline> and when it didn't seem to work I fiddled around a bit so I'm not sure which way around I left them in the end. I went to the full editor to edit the post just now and I could only seem to add more photos rather than change these. No worries - next time I have anything to post with photos I'll just click <inline> and see what happens.