Alert Bird, The Dingle Sunken Garden, Shrewsbury

[Edit: Shutterup and DavidP have now cleverly & kindly identified this as a Night Heron - and it seems it's been seen and photographed several times already in the Dingle in Shrewsbury.]

We came across this quite large bird during our sightseeing walk round Shrewsbury today. If anyone can identify it for us, then please do. We fancy it may be some sort of crane with its neck retracted, but we're no experts and really aren't at all sure. It was certainly on high alert beside the pond but in spite of us watching it carefully for several minutes it made no attempt to dive in for any fish.

We managed to fit in many of the other tourist sights in Shrewsbury including the Abbey & St Chad's (unusual, circular) Church today, and had a boat trip on the river as well.

The first extra shows "The Quantum Leap", a rather controversial sculpture erected in 2009 for the Darwin bicentenary. It's been likened to a variety of things including shellfish, vertebrae and the DNA molecule (and also a "slinky" spring!). Part of the controversy centres around iuts cost, initially estimated at £200,000 but eventually reaching £1m in view of constructional difficulties. It's 12 metres high, 17.5 metres long, and weighs more than 113 tonnes.

Thes second extra shows how Shrewsbury girls party!! (It's actually a statue to Sabrina, the goddess of the River Severn in Celtic mythology.) I hasten to add that we were NOT responsible for the hat  ;-))