Rare flights of fancy

One day last week we woke to sunshine after days of deluges and flooding on West Cork roads and (once again) in the towns of Bandon and Clonakilty.

We decided we get out for a walk quickly, while the going was good. I wanted to see if the ravens were building on the cliffs, and to check the heron nests in the woods below the house. Returning an hour later, we were barely indoors when the sky delivered first, our “domestic” heron and — as it stood by the pond awaiting breakfast — a hailstorm of rare ferocity.

Did the heron duck under the balcony to avoid the fusillade? Did it nip under the densely-leaved holly tree or the big clumps of sedge grass for comfort? Not a bit of it! It stood motionless in the middle of the yard, the hail hopping off it.