A BEAUTIFUL and 'highly secretive' bird rarely seen though its distinctive piglet-like squeal is sometimes heard has been getting ready for its close-up in Acton Bridge.
Water rails – Rallus aquaticus - are not all that uncommon, but their tendency to hide deep in freshwater reedbed beds means only the most patient or luckiest watchers catch a glimpse, as a rule.
While they look a bit like their larger and braver cousins, moorhens and coots, but with a specialised probing bill, in terms of behaviour, the two species could not be more different.
The call of a Water rail from the reed beds has been likened to that of a piglet squealing.
Though it is not unheard of for wildlife photographers to capture them on film with a telephoto lens and a lot of patience, to snap one as it peers boldly through the window of your canal boat is very much out of the ordinary.
But exactly this happened to Delaphine Lyon on Sunday, January 4, at about 1pm, when this bold specimen rocked up to her canal boat moored at Acton Bridge on the River Weaver.
“It came so close, and seemed to love having its picture taken,” she said.
A spokesman for the RSPB said: “Although usually highly secretive, they can become confident.
“But they are still far more often heard than seen.”
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