Down near the city end of the Grand Canal, I’ve noticed in passing, there lives a colony of grey herons.
Or at least that’s where they work, 9am-5pm or later. They patrol a section of the waterway between the two Mount Street bridges, or often just watch from the roofs of canal bank houses, spaced out like sentries, one roof each.
The official collective noun for herons is a “siege”. And there is something military-looking about the birds’ appearance.
But the word siege, which comes to us via French, means “sitting”. Whereas herons never sit when on duty. They stand, long and erect, until spurred into their dramatic and distinctive flight formation: necks crooked, legs stretched out behind.
It must be a mixture of colour and bearing that gi
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