The Little Egret of Great Ayton

This morning, I set out with some faint notion of a nature photograph for today’s post. Nothing specific, but as fate would have it, on crossing the bridge over to Waterfall Park, I spotted Great Ayton’s resident Little Egret. Yes, “resident,” as though this bird has become some fixture of local society.

There it stood—in resplendent white, with a beak like a dagger and feathers so impossibly clean they seemed designed to put the rest of us to shame. The egret has settled along our River Leven, patrolling all the way to Stokesley, quite as though it had been awarded the position by right. It makes itself rather conspicuous, as if demanding that heads should turn and voices should murmur, “Look at that dainty bird?” And it roams the riverbank with all the calculated poise of an experienced shopper, eyes clued on the river shallows as though scanning the sale rack before diving in for a bargain. 

For the sake of accuracy, it is likely there are more of them, perhaps even a mating pair, fingers crossed. But one can hardly be certain, as the creatures tend to behave in a somewhat jittery fashion. I have seen it taking flight many times before, alarmed at the mere suggestion of my presence, like a nervous débutante shielding herself from the crowd. But today—rather astonishingly—there it was, nonchalant, within easy view of anyone idling over tea in Suggit’s café.

Then, as I watched, there followed a brief pantomime of sorts: a slight cock of the head, a delicate flick to the left, an elegant nod to the right. And, as though to demonstrate its sovereign command over the river, it gracefully lifted off, landed mid-river, and punctuated its performance by spearing a small, wriggling fish—breakfast served with admirable efficiency.

Of course, egrets once graced our shores in stands, before their fashionably plumed heads fell victim to the 18th-century feather trade. It was not until 1996 that a pair saw fit to reclaim British soil, settling on Brownsea Island in Dorset and thereby inaugurating a minor renaissance for their kind. Since then, their numbers have quietly swelled, with egrets of every stripe—little, cattle, great white—drifting northward in step with climate change, as if enacting some wry avian migration of the well-heeled.

More often glimpsed motionless and upright, Great Ayton’s Little Egret conveys every intention of staying put. Whether it intends to do so with a single-minded insistence on the local fish, or merely as a creature prone to lingering out of habit, remains, as yet, unclear.