Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

Lakeside Park has always felt welcoming, and it was an unscheduled return on a dull, misty morning in September that saw me tracing my steps from a year ago. I wondered what would be different and what would be unchanged. The black-crowned night heron's willow tree was uncustomarily empty. The long outstretched branch of the willow which reached out over the water had been a favoured roost, but it held nothing. Perhaps I'd catch sight of the beaver out amongst the lilypads, bobbing up and down as it dabbled in the shallows with its feet, searching for tasty roots. But again, there was nothing. The lake appeared eerily still.  And then my vision started to return. Through the mist, a familiar shape came into sharp relief. A grey silhouette dwarfed by the tall reeds on the far bank. It was tiptoeing its way along the length of a partly submerged branch. I had never observed the night heron hunting, but there it was. There was no light, no detail, just grain and layers in shades o...