A chick born to the first pair of purple herons to breed in the UK has been spotted emerging from the nest, the RSPB said yesterday.
The young bird was seen early yesterday morning by volunteer Phil Eglise who was on watch at the wildlife charity’s Dungeness reserve in Kent.
Mr Eglise said he saw the young heron clambering up willow bushes near the nest site in an apparent effort to try and gain height before flying.
“It was practising flapping its wings before flying around in a couple of brief circles above the nesting reed bed.
“The sighting lasted about 45 minutes to an hour in total. The heron then disappeared again into the tall reeds,” he said.
An RSPB official said the behaviour had not been seen before in either of the adults, which has led to confirmation that the sighting was of a fledgling.
The bird was also very brown and dull in appearance, lacking the dark stripes normally seen along an adult’s neck.
It is the first chick seen to venture out of the nest so far but it is believed there is at least one more to come.
The adult male is still visiting the nest site every few hours with food and the female remains largely unseen – as she has done ever since the eggs were laid.
A daily watch is being continued to report any further sightings.
The RSPB set up a round-the-clock species protection scheme as soon as it was found the parents were nesting at the site on the Dungeness peninsula at the end of April.
In June, increased activity and regular feeding forays suggested that chicks had hatched and by mid-July chicks could be heard from the nest.
The striking birds breed in southern Europe and visit Britain in small numbers each year but the pair appear to have managed a UK first by hatching eggs here.
Purple herons have struggled in Europe in recent decades and are one of the species likely to be setting up home in southern Britain as climate change pushes wildlife further north.
But the RSPB is concerned their reserve at Dungeness is under threat from the potential development of the airport at nearby Lydd.
The government has called in the decision by Shepway Council to allow the airport to expand operations and it is now set to be subject to a public inquiry.
The purple heron is closely related to the larger and widespread grey heron and can reach 90 centimetres in height with a wingspan of up to a metre and a half.
In continental Europe the purple heron usually breeds in colonies in reed beds and feeds in wetland areas on insects, reptiles and amphibians as well as other small animals.
A migratory bird, the European population of purple herons spend the winter in Africa.