Behold the beautiful heron that I spotted on Friday morning along the Regent's Canal close to King's Cross. It was a beautiful morning at around 08:15 and the sun was rising amidst a beautiful blue sky tingeing the fluffy white clouds with pink. I was particularly full of new year, early morning joy at the day that was unfolding when out of the corner of my eye I spotted this large bird and I immediately got off the bike to watch it. The previous day Istopped to feed some slightly stale bread to the birds and it turned into a bit of a bird-blood-bath. As soon as I pulled out the bag with the bread two geese made a bee line for me and about 15 pigeons and 20 gulls came as well to try to grab any and all of the bread before the geese could. Anyway, this bird that I had not spotted before along the canal was different. It was stood in the water on one foot and was watching a group of about five runners running along. This bird was so majestic and I felt that there was an old soul within it's body with far more knowledge than I could ever imagine to have. I stood for about five minutes and just watched it but besides observing the runners it made no other movements. Later that evening I sent my photo to my friend Tom who is rather twitchy for an identification and he simply responded, "Heron!!!" This confirmed my guess and Tom went on to say, "Herons are incredibly exciting to watch. Everything they do is thrilling; stalking, fishing, taking off, flying. The whole package. Probably tops my chart."

I had a quick look through my symbolism and dream books and several words kept coming up regarding herons; versatility, intelligence, patience, calm, grace, solitude and determination. These are all words that I can and try to improve upon. I certainly took seeing the beautiful heron as a good omen and felt incredibly lucky to have seen it.