Bruce Nixon, Birds of Port Coogee and Surrounds (ANIMAL & NATURE 2026)

I was on the lookout for the secretive and nocturnal Nankeen Night Heron during a sunset walk around the marina following a warm summers day. When on a distant floating pontoon I spotted this fella standing upright and motionless in typical intense fashion waiting for unsuspecting fish to swim by. All of a sudden and only momentarily he puffed his crest feathers and then dropped them again, something I had never seen before but came to learn this is when alert or alarmed. He may have spotted a fish in the water, a potential mate nearby, or a human photographer in the distance!

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