Ashapeshifting bird has descended on our stretch of the River Ivel. It turns heads, commands attention, and fits the descriptions of both dainty and dumpy. My eyes lifted the other day from a pair of swans scudding across the mill pool towards the far side, where the river resumes its narrowed course. There was white beyond white, a little egret poking around the margins with such assurance and precision that it reminded me of a decisive shopper – one of those, one of those and, yes, I’ll take two of those. Over the winter, egrets were jittery, flighty visitors here, apt to lift off and swirl in agitation whenever I came into view. But this one, closer than any hitherto, once I had walked along the bank to confront it, was unfazed. Egrets do dainty. Moments earlier, its elfin figure, slight and slender, light on Marmite-dark pins, gave a twist of the head, a flick to the left, nod to the right. Poke, prod, jab. And then up it rose, flapped a little way, before settling as a no-neck dumpy heron. A row of birds perched on the river-spanning cage around a gas pipe: a sentry line of three black-headed gulls with chocolate heads, plus now the egret tagged on the end. I’d never seen any other bird share the gulls’ stance before, but they looked unbothered, maybe because the taller egret immediately shrank into itself so that it was just one of the gulls. Members of the heron family have a tendency towards habitual behaviour, and it wasn’t a complete surprise to find the egret on the same perch 24 hours later. The gulls were gone. The bird, exposed and hunched, eyed a man and a dog who were walking the bank towards it. The egret turned its head by degrees to see them off. Just then a light breeze arose, ruffling the compact shape, lifting a nuptial plume briefly from its nape as if it were a curl out of place. Was this one of a breeding pair, perhaps?