Indian Pond Heron (Ardeola grayii)

Indian Pond Heron (Ardeola grayii), originally uploaded by retheesh k r.

My aunt called me when she saw me going home after some shopping. She took me to a neighbouring stream to show me this heron. I could not understand first, why this heron stayed there even after we reached quite close to it. Uncharacteristically it kept its long bill in water. Then I realised this unfortunate heron is a victim of our own carelessness act of throwing everything into streams and rivers. This bird while attempting to spear its food, pierced this old discarded cloth. It was visibly exhausted by trying hard to remove the cloth from its bill. This piece of wet cloth was little too heavy for this bird to fly with. I left my bag on the shore and decided to wade to reach the bird on the other side. By this time my cousin brought me my camera, which helped me to take this photo just before entering water.
I was bit nervous seeing the long sharp bill. So after reaching near the bird, I got its bill in my right hand and secured it before picking the bird up. Once I reached back on the shore, I tried to pull the bill out of the cloth. But it seemed like the cloth got entangled with few tiny ridges on the herons bill. My aunt then gave me her kitchen knife suggesting that I should cut the cloth away instead of pulling it hard and thus hurting the bird. That proved to be a brilliant idea. She hold the bird in her hand and I carefully cut the cloth from its bill. We were all happy to see it flying towards one of the lower branches of a nearby tree.