An egret hunting in the ditch by Parkend bridge

I went to Gloucester today on a circuitous route to stock up with several grocery items, including, poppadoms from a wonderful Indian food emporium, tofu and fresh ginger from the Chinese food warehouse, and the delightful Jess’s Ladies organic keffir and milk in nearby Hardwicke. Unfortunately the sunshine disappeared behind big clouds by the time I reached the River Severn at Epney where I’d hoped to watch the bird life, the river flow and get a blipI

After a quiet time beside the river I drove back towards the cotswold hills where we live in the Stroud valleys. I had to cross one of the swing bridges over the Sharpness to Gloucester canal at Parkend. As I drove onto the bridge I saw a large white bird flying in parallel over the canal before turned to the right above the road to land behind a small house by the canal bank. I realised it was an egret and thought it was worth pulling over and trying to find where it had landed.

Quickly parking beside the towpath on the north side I grabbed my camera and carefully moved towards the big drainage ditch where I thought it might have landed. A large thrush caught my eye and me lens but flew away as I approached. There was a road side fence between me and the ditch which shielded me from being too obvious to the egret, which I saw standing in the flowing water. I managed to get a couple of shots as it waded down the stream but it was rather dark in the ditch so my images weren’t great. At least I managed to blip an egret for the first time this year, before it too flew away when I got too close for its comfort.