species identification

Just went to hang the washing out and a heron came high over the woods on the warm south wind, spiralled down just off the stall, silver wings curved like paragliders, secondaries wiffling, and landed in the weeping willow to take the morning sun. I used to think herons were craggy and solitary birds without much sparkle. Not now. In winter I can watch goosanders fishing for rudd on the millpond while I’m shaving. There'll be a heron on the bank, galumphing up and down with sideways hops like an overexcited adolescent football coach. It has reason. The goosanders work by diving and driving the fish in towards the edge, where the heron gets its share. Once I saw one too impatient to wait. The ducks were in the middle, resting and preening. The heron took off, flew across and plonked down amongst the affronted sawbills, floundered around a bit flapping its wings, and managed to lift off back to the side before it got waterlogged. I don’t know whether it was a bad mistake, a sad over-identification with another species, or an under- subtle message to the goosanders to get a move on with the fish-herding.