Life in the old heron yet as courtship dance goes on

Damien Enright’s regular visitor to this column, ’his’ heron, returns... 

My wife suggests that the bird is confused, he hasn’t twigged that nesting in 2017 is over for herons, and that he can’t go on carrying sticks to the heronry in the hope of picking up some young thing that hasn’t yet bred.

He thinks he can find romance again by carrying a stick around as if ready to start a nest (the male brings the material; the female does the construction, for Health and Safety reasons, I’d say). Older females will ignore him; the rearing season is past and they have no need for further male interference.