Chance encounters of the brighten-the-day kind

[feuer_flammenlos]

So, earlier today I was on a train passing through the Very Depressing Lowlands of Veneto when, in the middle of something that might have (once upon a time) been an irrigation/deflux channel and now looked like a strangely wood-ed bit of marsh, there was a flash of white. It was a Great White Heron.
The day became instantly brighter. :)