 So this is the extract from a book of the Grey Heron. The Grey Heron is one of the most adaptable and successful birds in the country. You're just as likely to see it in a city park as a remote Scottish loft. You'll often see them standing motionless by the water's edge, waiting for the perfect moment to stab at their prey with a large dagger-like bill their long necks unfurling. It's the largest predatory wading bird in the country with the wingspan of a golden eagle. Its stealthy, delicate steps around the water's edge are just as distinctive as its slow, slightly ponderous flight. Herons build large, messy nests of sticks crammed between the branches of old trees. The male collects all the material for the nest and the female decides where it goes. Sounds familiar? At some point between February and May a clutch of four or five eggs will be laid and once hatched it takes the young herons seven or eight weeks to get their wings. A word of warning, don't get too close to have a look. When herons are spooked they have a habit of vomiting as a defence. Half digested pieces of eel and a water vole skull on your head is not a good look. Just so you know. We had a heron problem in our back garden. It would sneak down on a dawn raid and help itself to the fish in our pond. We tried every defence, but it foiled all of them. It poked its beak through the netting, it stepped over the twine and it was attracted to the plastic heron that was supposed to repel it. So I had this brilliant idea that I would wait up and when it arrived at first light I would scare it off with my son's water pistol. In the best tradition of a stakeout I got some coffee and donuts filled up the inundator or the ultimate marinator or the aquagen 500 whatever it was and settled in to give our heron friend the soaking. Sadly I nodded off and the big thieving git got all our fish. In the end we bought a plastic crocodile put that on the pond's edge and it worked a treat. The heron has never returned. Was the best six quid I've ever spent? In our house and in our garden we have a kind of, I suppose it's a really, it's like a rescue centre for animals. We started to take in rescue animals a few years ago, started off with a dog and then another dog and then more dogs until we had a lot of dogs, then we had cats and then we had various other things and then we started to take in birds and these were birds who could not be home, who had been in a collection or a bird sanctuary and for whatever reason the owners couldn't look after them anymore and because we had the facilities to do it we had a bit of space in the garden and we turned a section of the inside of our flat into a little glassed-off aviary I guess and so once we did this more people would come forward and more people would say well we've got these birds, this parrot, this cockatoo, could you look after it? And so we found space for them and so we live currently with four parrots, Molly, a Maluccan cockatoo, we've got Yakob who is a Triton cockatoo, we have Luna which she's a Citron crested and we have Poppy, a palm cockatoo and they're all from various sources of rescue cases and sanctuaries that couldn't find a home for them anymore, they were homeless effectively so they live with us it can be quite challenging because they're quite loud and they do make a racket in the morning and in the evening but that of course mimics their wild behaviour which is flock calling so cockatoos tend to like to forage during the day and at the end of the day they all shout out to everyone where is everyone, okay we're over here, everyone over here we're all going to fly back to the roost and of course that's great when you're out in the jungles of Indonesia but when you're in a small flat, that can be quite loud and the other thing is that they can be quite destructive because they're incredibly intelligent, they've got very powerful beaks and they like to gnaw things and that's what they're doing again so to mimic their natural behaviour we give them lots of toys we're constantly giving them, they love a cardboard box more than anything that will keep them occupied all day long, they love that so we get a cardboard box, tape it up, put it up in their little nesting box ah they're happiest Larry all day and occasionally you just hear the box being ripped to shreds all day and occasionally a head will poke out and look at you and then they go back inside and start ripping the thing and they're brilliant characters, they're amazingly sort of entertaining as companions you know they each have their own character, Molly is very gregarious she likes pop music, Jakob she likes reggae, you know Luna and Poppy like more sedate, classical music strings they like more sort of like romantic music Poppy's quite sort of, she's quite quiet and unassuming but she's got hilarious, she has hilarious moods where she just stamps her claw for some reason when she gets annoyed Luna's very sweet, she likes certain people they're incredible characters, they've got these amazing personalities which I would have never imagined if you told me that you know well years ago when we were first looked after a parent you know I probably had very limited expectation I thought they might just be sort of cowed or they're not you know they're just, they're wild caught or they're not you know they've been raised from an egg they've had this sort of strange life and they might not have a personality they're amazing, amazing creatures but you have to be quite committed to have them in your life