The huge white bird sailed overhead. Long neck coiled into an S shape, wide wings flaring, long legs trailing, it passed across the valley like a spotlight. I wasn’t the only onlooker lost in wonder. A mild Hereford bull, grazing with his cows, looked up and watched the strange sight, too. Colossal, brilliant white and languid in flight, it had to be a great white egret. Great white egret!

Could it really be this rare vagrant? Over the past decades other members of the egret family have been moving north into Britain from Europe; little egrets are now common, and even cattle egrets with their golden topknots are becoming less rare, but only a handful of great white egrets are spotted each autumn.