Heron is adept at ‘smelling a rat’ and then swallowing it
THEY SAY there is always a rat within six feet of you, but we haven’t seen one for four years, not since our heron, then a mere ‘child’, paused at a clump of reeds beside our garden pond, stretched its neck, took aim and lifted out a rat by the scruff of the neck and drowned it, before swallowing it on the spot.
Last week, after so long an interval, we saw another. Once again, we were alerted to its presence by the heron. But I can hardly say we saw it; we glimpsed it, and no more.
