Little Egret painting

Whilst waiting for my Barn Owl painting to dry sufficiently for me to complete the tree stumps details and thus the whole painting ive picked up on an oil painting that i laid out the design for about a month ago and never really got any further than adding a bit of underpainting.Last autumn on one of my many reference gathering trips i visited one of my favourite birding spots on the south coast Farlington Marshes situated in the northern part of Langstone Harbour.It was a lovely still,bright and crisp autumn's day and the tide had receded leaving the mudflats and lovely brightly coloured clumps of seaweed exposed with channels of standing sea water acting like lovely blue mirrors reflecting the lovely golden browns of the seaweed.Gathered on the mudflats feeding in the shallow water's were a group of about a dozen egrets,members of  whom would periodically take flight,sometimes to feed in a different pool and othertimes to engage in short but very graceful spats with neighbouring egrets.I took lots of shots that day as i invariably do everytime i'm confronted by egrets,just cant help it,they're such elegant,graceful birds and the pure white feathers inevitably reflect all the colours around them.despite the plethora of shots i knew what i wanted in the way of capturing both the brightness of the day and the lovely colours of the weed for a background to an egret painting but i couldn't quite get a good flight capture that would work the way i wanted the image to pan out.As luck would have it a photographer friend of mine had captured some lovely shots of flying egrets in very similar lighting and at the same time of year and graciusly allowed me to base my egret in flight on one of his images,for which i'm very grateful.Having completed the background underpainting i'm now working from the top of the image down adding a detailed top coat of oils,before i make a start on the egret.The egret itself will have to wait to be completed untill ive completed the barn owl painting but either way i hope to have both paintings completed in time to display at Nature in Art during my residency there from 13th march for 1 week.