a tall wading bird standing on one leg, head high, at its own true size and photoreal, every hair or feather barb held sharp — pale cream and naturalistic, carrying a coral bill and eye ring as the only warm thing anywhere in the frame. It stands in dense mounded indigo scrub, packed into close spherical heads making a lumpy carpet that runs to both edges and fills the lower two thirds, the field deep and dark and deeply coloured rather than bright. A dark ridge runs across the top with a narrow band of pale sky above it, and the whole frame sits in that one deep violet-blue family with the animal's accent the only warmth in it. soft even dusk, the sky a narrow pale band at the top and the land below it dark, the light shadowless. The field dense and lumpy, the animal's coat smooth and sharp against it. The frame empty of people. Ceremonial and still, the animal entirely aware of being looked at.