Newport Cattle Egret + ?

This am with the Little Egret in the field behind the lime kiln.
And looking upstream from the bridge,while I was counting Little Grebes (as you do), my companion saw, she supposed, a heron drop into the reed bed. Well, it was heronish size, dark speckledish, like an immature Herring Gull, flying low over the reeds before dropping in.