Coming out of the Phnom Penh restaurant in Oakland (which is an excellent Cambodian place in case you’re interested), I saw this bird sitting on a commercial bin. He let me take one shot relatively close up with my Nokia phone camera, then jumped down onto the road where I got this not-so-close shot.
Anybody got any idea what it is? There are three more photos on Flickr, but two are “in flight” shots where it jumped just as I was pressing the shutter release.
This bird is called a Night Heron. It frequents the marinas and, as the name suggests, comes out around dusk and hunts. Seen in your photo, his neck is squished down; believe it or not it can extend about 9 inches. This guy sits on the swimsteps of boats and nabs minnows that are attracted to the dock lights. I live on a boat in Oakland and I’m quite fond of these birds.
Thank you for solving that little mystery for me. I will have to keep a lookout for them when I have my real camera with me; the cellphone one just did not do him justice. I can’t believe I’ve lived here over 8 years and never seen one before.