‘CASTING ABOUT’: A TRICOLORED HERON HUNTING

‘Casting’ is one of those words with multiple meanings, some archaic but most in use today. You can probably think of half-a-dozen straight off *. ‘Casting about’ is one of the specific usages and derives from hunting, eg hounds casting about for a scent. By extension, it has come to mean something like searching intently or thoroughly for something you need, or want, or are having difficulty in finding. Which is where this tricolored heron comes into the picture.

It’s always entertaining to watch a heron or egret fishing. Their methods range from standing stock still and suddenly stabbing downwards to slowly wading to the crazy dash that reddish egrets sometimes do on the edge of the mangroves. This one is hooding its wings, sometimes called ‘canopy feeding’. The theory is that this attracts small fish by providing shade. I also wonder if this method is used to reduce glare from the surface of the water.

The bird in this sequence is a juvenile, and not yet the  lethal hunter that it will soon become. It has seen a fish moving but has temporarily lost it (fishermen will be familiar with the mild feeling of annoyance when this happens). So it is casting about, slowly zig-zagging through the water, looking from a height, crouching down, trying to get a good view of its elusive snack. I can’t say that this little episode ended in success. Sometimes, the fish you sight and then lose has gone for good. But as fishermen often say when they lose one (and by extension the phrase is now applied to other areas of human life), there are always plenty more fish in the sea.

* Even without considering Mr Weinstein and his allegedly unusual casting methods

Photo credit: Phil Lanoue, a photographer who specialises in patiently taking sequences of bird activity