Rare African Heron in Brooklyn!

On Sunday at Jamaica Bay, a fellow birder told me that a western reef heron, which is an African species, was sighted last week off the Belt Parkway between Coney Island and the Verazzano Bridge.

He kind of dissed me by asking if Amy, Eric and I were looking the swans, which is kind of like asking if you like Andy Warhol. We had our tripod set up and were looking out over the pond at Jamaica Bay. "No," I informed him, "there's a yellow-crowned night heron." Then he asked if I had seen the reef heron. I asked what a reef heron was. He laughed and made like I was crazy. "How could you have not heard of the reef heron?!" He then explained that it's from Africa. Sorry I'm not up to snuff on my middle eastern waterfowl, bro.

Actually, I guess he was assuming that I had seen any bird alerts that past week, as there had a lot of messageboard posts and rare bird alerts out about it. Apparently a lot of people had come to see it at the Coney Island Creek near the Home Depot Parking lot. Here are some pics from 10o00Birds.com:






Unfortunately, Eric and I went down the Monday afternoon, and the bird had not been sighted all day. We didn't have any luck either. Well, back to cutting for me, eh?