With a head-pumping strut, the cattle egret struts around the cows

Warblington, Hampshire By associating with large ungulates, these birds can obtain up to 50% more food using two-thirds of the energy required for lone foraging

A loose flock of egrets has gathered by the cattle in the corner of the pasture to the west of the cemetery. Three of the white herons are immediately identifiable as little egrets, their yellow feet beacons in the mizzle. The fourth bird looks dumpy, hunchbacked and stubby-billed next to its elegant, slim-necked, rapier-billed cousins. It is a cattle egret, a species that has had one of the most rapid and wide-ranging natural expansions of any bird, but is still relatively rare in Britain. Two of them were spotted here in mid-December. A few days later, they were joined by a third and, by the new year, five birds were regularly being sighted in the fields surrounding the church.

Related: A solitary little egret is an elegant sentinel on the muddy creek