Heron on the roof

My partner woke at 1.30 am on Thursday night hearing feet scrabbling on the roof. He sleeps in the loft room so he flung open the Velux and switched on the torch. He expected to see a rat, but instead it was a heron, its feet scrabbling for purchase on the slippery tiles.

Next morning he discovered that he no longer had 12 fish in his pond, but only 11. Fortunately my favourite, Sandra, a very athletic goldfish with a blonde head who wiggles rapidly to the surface and makes an Olympic leap several times a day, was still there. But the traumatised fish have spend the last two days huddled together in a tight group, perhaps thinking there is safety in numbers.

Lulled into a sense of false security, the netting had been taken off the pond but now it's securely back in place. Just what was a heron doing fishing by night? They are not nocturnal birds. Perhaps it was taking advantage of the bright moonlight. Strangely enough, the missing fish was the only completely white one so perhaps that made it easier to see.