Heron: "Harumph"

Please look in large ("L"): I was close enough to capture its beautiful plumage in detail.

I visited Eagle Pond this morning hoping to see goslings (why not?), but found only Mr. Goosle... Oh well, no goslings yet, but I still had a one-sided chat with him in spite of the drizzle. He's much more chilled with me these days.

This afternoon the sun started shining so I went to Wandsworth Common; the light was nice but I wasn't doing very well (photographically) until a pair of grey herons flew in being quarrelsome. They flew low over my head and seemed to be swooping at each other; I was almost too stunned to take photographs, but got a couple of nice shots of one of them. I wandered around the pond and found this one sitting on a woody island at the far end. It was hard to get a clear shot of it because of where it was perched, but I found two angles from which I could get nice shots, and spent a long while watching its behaviour which I really enjoyed. It did a lot of preening, and was looking thoroughly irritated because the wind kept messing up its plumage!

I'm torn about which to blip though; I've chosen this one because I think it best shows how irritated it was looking (all hunched and standing on one leg with its plumage on end!), but I've put up two others on blipfolio. This one shows it from another angle, and I love the way its feathers run down its back (that pattern'd make an amazing tailcoat!). This one shows it with its feathers all tousled by the wind.