Spring Adventures

I woke up early this morning and remembered it was the first day of spring, so I sprung (sorry) out of bed determined to make something of the morning. My first look out of the window was a mixed blessing...so cold there was frost on the roofs of the next building, thick fog to the east, but clear to the north and....wait for it...it wasn't raining!

Frosted Landscape

So I grabbed my camera and my grocery list and headed out. By the time I hit the main intersection I could see bits of sunshine and a massed fly-over of herons above the heronry. Waiting for the light to change, I glanced in my rearview and saw Elvis. Yes, I started off spring this year with an Elvis sighting. Elvis jet-black hair in his later years comb-over, Elvis sideburns, Elvis sunglasses. He was driving an aged Ford, which was my first clue that he wasn't the real Elvis. My second clue was the woman in the passenger seat...gray-haired and smoking a cigarette. For a moment I entertained the idea of following the car to it's destination just to see what he was wearing, but he turned right and my Starbucks was to the left.

I was also concerned about the herons. (Nature Kills) By the time I had my coffee and was sitting at the heronry, everyone was back at their nests except for the odd father-to-be flying off for another branch. It was only a few minutes later that a large bald eagle flew swiftly across the heronry and out of sight, creating a cacaphony of raucous heron calls and a mass shifting of herons facing the sun, to herons facing the retreating enemy. I decided to leave before he came back, but I am happy to report that last year's predations don't seem to have affected the numbers of nesting herons this year.

2014 Happy Families

Leaving the grocery store, I made a loop through the neighborhood looking for a good 'Stone' photo for my Flickr 365 project, but I kept getting derailed by the early blooming trees - plum, cherry, the odd camelia, that ever-present pale purple species rhody, and my personal favorite - forsythia. I don't think there is any shrub more often improperly pruned than forsythia so to appreciate the real beauty, you almost have to look for one in an untended yard. I never did find a photo-worthy bush, so I had to settle for just a branch, fortuitously planted in front of a color-matched trailer.

Forsythia

 It may not have been the most exciting Spring Adventure, but I didn't waste much gas and I got a few laughs.

Mr & Mrs Heron

Anthropomorphism: Any attribution of human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to other animals (or birds)

I have mentioned before my great good fortune in living near a heronry. This morning, as I do as often as possible at this time of year, I stopped for a few minutes to drink my Starbucks and watch the birds. This is what I saw...

Mr & Mrs Heron perched on either side of their nest at the top of one of the trees, looking rather bored with the world. Before long Mr Heron took off and flew over my head to a stand of trees within my view. He wandered around a bit until he found just the perfect twig then soared back to the heronry, circling once (so everyone would take notice that he had brought home the PERFECT twig) and then landing right next to Mrs. Heron. She smiled, I presume, took the twig from him and turned to the nest to insert it in the very spot she had in mind for improvement. As she leaned forward to do this Mr Heron seized the opportunity and jumped her bones.

Awwww, Nature!

Mr. Heron Choosing his branch

Nature Kills

I have the great good fortune to live close to a heronry (a colony of breeding herons).  They are beautiful and unusual birds.  Although I am fond of quite a list of birds – crows, magpies, English robins, puffins, swans, and bullfinches in particular – herons have such a wonderfully unusual shape, and when they fly past for just a moment you think you are seeing some prehistoric flying creature.

Not long after I moved to where I am now, I became unemployed, so I had the luxury of spending as much time watching the herons as I wished.  There is a Park and Ride adjacent to the protected area in which you can park and watch them.  You need bins to really see what is going on, but all through the spring of my first year here I would stop by for at least a few minutes almost every day and watch them building and repairing their nests, jockeying for position, and occasionally making love.  It was a delightful break in my comings and goings during a sun-filled spring season.



One of about five trees with nests in the heronry.  One of the trees has easily twice as many nests as this one does.

Last year, still unemployed, I began my regular visits as soon as they arrived at the nests.  I was lucky enough to see a great group of them arrive at the nests all together – an amazing sight of gangly legs and outspread wings settling down into the trees and nests.

Early one sunny Sunday morning I pulled into the near empty parking lot and realized immediately that something was very wrong.

We are blessed, near the shores of Lake Washington, to have a healthy and happy group of bald eagles.  Bald eagles like heron eggs.  I watched helplessly as two eagles savaged the nests.  One eagle moved from nest to nest and you didn’t need bins to imagine what was going on.  The other eagle circled above the trees.  Several large herons tried hopelessly to drive the eagle away, but even a full grown male heron is no match for a bald eagle.  Most awful however, were the cries of the herons.  They have a rather squawky sound normally with inserted clacking of beaks but now, at this moment, they were clearly cries of agony and despair.  Not to anthropomorphize the situation more than necessary, but I swear I could hear the parental anguish in their cries.  It was quite disturbing.

As sad as it was, I reminded myself that this was nature in action, this is what happens in the animal world.  As a friend of mind reminded me recently, “nature kills”.

I really couldn’t bear to watch or listen any longer so I headed around the corner towards home.  About five hundred yards from the heronry is a stand of trees normally unoccupied.  Now, they were loaded with herons, well over a hundred – all the herons that are normally unseen in their deep nests, and probably every last member of the group sat there, looking towards the nesting trees.  Waiting.  It may have been the saddest thing I ever saw in my life.



One of this years herons, looking for the perfect branch to add to the nest.



So spring has come again this year, without sunshine for the most part, and I have resumed my watch at the heronry.  But it is not the same for me as it was.  I don't stay as long, and I am always scanning the skies above the trees.  It is sort of like Christmas the first year after you discover there is no Santa Claus.  The tree and the presents are still there, but some of the joy has gone.