We didn’t expect to meet the ghost heron. Having enjoyed a birthday walk along our local beck, we were hurrying home for a special lockdown pub takeaway, when we glimpsed a discarded white carrier bag snagged in some alder roots.
Thinking nothing of it, except perhaps to reflect on the omnipresence of plastic pollution, we were about 10 yards from the alder, when the piece of litter suddenly grew a pair of wings and became a little egret.