Grey

It was another deeply grey day, but I can only be stuck at home for so long before I start tunnelling out under the floors, so when R went off to Stratford this afternoon (nowhere in Evesham having been able to provide him with any E5 fuel for the ride-on mower yesterday), I tagged along for the fresh air and steps. And coffee and cake, obviously.

When we arrived on the south side of the river I said, "I need you to spot me something interesting, please. A Heron or a Goosander would do. Or another Treecreeper. Or a Cormorant." But R hasn't lived with me for almost four decades without recognising a poisoned chalice when he's offered one, so instead of accepting the challenge he decided that he needed a bit of a cardio workout, said, "See you in BTP," and disappeared off at a fast trot, leaving me to find an interesting bird on my own.

Which, as you can see, I did - and I was quite smug twenty minutes later, when it turned out that the family spotter hadn't spotted it. To be fair, he was moving quite a bit faster than me, and the Grey Heron was lurking in a slightly unusual place, at the bottom of the RSC's Avonbank Gardens. I stood and watched it for a couple of minutes in the hope that it would decide to fish, but it was either meditating or impersonating a pond ornament, because it didn't twitch more than an eyelid the whole time I was there.

When we came out of BTP the cloud had thinned significantly - there was even a bit of blue sky showing, though it wouldn't have made trousers for anything much bigger than a mouse - and we hot-footed it back to where I could snap the Heron in better light. Sadly however, it had gone, and though I checked the other likely spots where it might have decided to go hunting, there was no sign of it. But as this is the time of year when you'd expect Grey Herons to be gathering at their heronries in readiness for breeding, seeing one on the river at all today was a pleasant surprise.