We spotted this heron during a riverside walk. The bird was standing very still contemplating a field of sheep, in fact so still that Shepherdmans Wife was convinced that it was a model (although was unable to come up with an explanation of why a Welsh farmer would erect a model heron amongst a flock of sheep), until I had hooked the dog leads over a convenient fence post a crept up on the bird. It turned its head and observed me curiously with a beady eye, before nonchalantly taking off and performing a flypast, allowing me to take a few photographs.
Excellent! We used to have a heron near the office but it hated being photographed. After a short while it got annoyed enough to fly off in a flap if it even saw me getting off the bus. They look quite prehistoric in flight, somehow.
