Wat Phutta Bucha is a fairly typical Buddhist temple, similar to thousands of others around Thailand, but one that happens to be fairly close to where I live and with hidden secret around the back of the temple complex. A canal forms the boundary of the temple grounds at the rear and a group of around twenty Black-crowned Night Herons can always be seen at close quarters where they wait in trees, man-made perches and on overhead wires within a few metres of passers-by. What are they waiting for? Well one needs to understand the practice of releasing fish and other animals in order for people to “make merit”.  The concept is that by releasing fish or frogs (and sometimes birds) into the wild, people get good karma for such a deed and at the back of Wat Phutta Bucha, these Night Herons have learned that there is a plentiful supply of fish and frogs being released. Many of these released creatures have been kept in oxygen-starved conditions for some time and are in a weakened state, so they are easy pickings for the Night Herons. Yesterday I spent a few hours taking photos and making some video clips of this population of Black-crowned Night Herons in action.

I took a taxi from where I live to the temple, buying some cold water from one of the vendors on-site as it was already very hot by 9am. I have been to Wat Phutta Bucha a few times before so it was no surprise to me to see loads of Black-crowned Night Herons loafing around as soon as I got to the back of the temple at the canal.

I found a seat at the canal side and set up my camera on a tripod ready to get some video clips of the birds doing something interesting. The only problem was that at first all they did was sit around doing nothing, so it was time for a few photos instead.

As well as plenty of adult birds there were a small number of immature birds as well. At this time of year tis species is generally nesting so there will probably be an influx of juvenile birds in the next few weeks or so.

Soon enough, though, there was something of interest to capture on video. An adult Night Heron flew down and plashed into the water, grabbing an item of prey from the canal. Landing on a canal-side pipe in then struggled to swallow some sort of worm-like fish (or is it some sort of caecilian?). Take a look at it in action in the following video clip.

After this there was little action apart from the odd scuffle between birds and the occasional disturbance by a passing boat, so it was back to a bit more photography.

I mentioned the practice of “making merit” in my introduction to this blog post and while most Thais believe it will bring them good karma when they release captive animals many people from outside of a Buddhist culture will question this. It is sadly true that most of these creatures that are getting released were wild animals that have been trapped and kept in very poor conditions while awaiting release. Of course the fact that there is a market for this type of “merit-making” means that the animals get trapped in the first place so it is extremely questionable that anyone is doing any good here. When one sees a lady in her best clothes come to the canal and release a large amphibian it is even more questionable whether she has done any good by this action when the creature in question is immediately seized by a Black-crowned Night Heron.

The actual moment of capture was one I missed but the noise the prey made on being caught alerted me to what was happening and after taking some photos I set up my camera on the tripod to video what happened next. As can be imagined it took a long time for the bird to kill such a large item of prey and I caught some of that process in the following video clip.

With such a moment it was hard not to go a bit mad with the camera and take an excess of photos as well as further video clips. It was amazing to see this Night Heron with such a huge item of prey; I had expected them to take fish but giant amphibians!

Eventually the ordeal was over and after a rest the Night Heron took the dead amphibian off into the trees to consume it. The day was getting rather hot by now and many birds were just standing around trying to cool down with their bills open and engaging in some gular-fluttering.

Black-crowned Night Herons, as their name suggests, do a lot of their hunting in the dark. Indeed I have often seen large emergences of them at dusk at a variety of locations but these birds were not having any of that. Presumably the easy-pickings at this location mean that they forgo the pleasure of nocturnal activities for an easy meal during the heat of the day. At around 11.30am another bird helped itself to one of the worm-like fish/caecilian that seemed popular.

Although I did not find the favoured prey of the Night Herons appetizing at all I did find myself feeling hungry so started to get ready to find some lunch, reflecting on the incident of the bird that caught the large frog/toad, something that you do not get to see every day. Oh, wait, would you believe it? Someone just released another one and it was immediately taken by a Night Heron, I guess it is not such a rare thing to see here.

I wonder if the act of merit-making is in the feeding of the Night Herons rather than in the releasing of the creatures? As I left there was very little human disturbance and the birds started flying across the canal to occupy both banks – a little bit of a sinister scene.

After a bit of lunch I took a walk along the walkway alongside the canal and found a surprising number of species including Green-billed Malkoha, Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, Striated Heron, Plaintive Cuckoo and several Asian Openbills. Wat Phutta Bucha is hardly a top-quality birding site but it is of interest if you want to watch Black-crowned Night Herons at extremely close range.

All of the images and video clips were obtained using the following equipment.

My Camera & Lens Canon 7D Mark II - https://amzn.to/2BaM3vm Canon EF

100-400mm f4-5-5.6L IS II Lens - https://amzn.to/2XMcbUT