Rick’s Rants and Raves

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting on my back patio, enjoying a beer, when I saw a bird with a massive wing span fly over the park behind my house. I watched for a moment, unaccustomed to seeing such a large bird in my neighborhood, trying to figure out what it was. As it landed on the roof of a house 500 feet from my house, I could tell it was a great blue heron. Unfortunately, it landed on the far side of that house’s roof peak, so I could only glimpse its head twice more  as it bobbed up and down. I told my family what I had seen, and Anne could just see it for a moment from our second floor den.

I decided to grab a camera (and my flip-flops) and try to get some pictures of it. I wasn’t sure what kind of chance I had of getting a shot, but I figured it was worth the short walk. Nathan tagged along, curious, but skeptical.

Nathan: You probably won’t be able to see it.

Me: How do you know that? Isn’t it worth the chance that we will see it?

Nathan: I just think it will already be gone.

Me: It might be, but I definitely won’t see it again if I’m sitting on my butt. Its worth a shot, right?

Nathan: Yeah, I suppose. I just don’t think you’ll find it.

Me: You don’t have to come along, if you’re so sure its gone.

Nathan followed me for about 3 minutes, until we’d looked at the front of the house where the bird had landed, and couldn’t see it. I decided to swing around to the other side of the block, so that I could try to see into the back yard of the house it had landed on. I still couldn’t see it from there, and was heading back home, a little disappointed that I had missed it. I knew it was near by because I could hear other birds chirping their warning calls, but I wasn’t willing to start climbing through back yards without permission.

As I was walking, I saw a man walking to the edge of his back yard with a camera. He saw me with my camera, and with a brief “Do you see it? Can I come into your yard?” I was able to take my first set of shots. A moment later, he flew just a bit out of sight, but was near a yard where I’d seen a lady washing her car.  I took off at a jog to get to her yard, and asked her if I could go in to take some pictures of the heron. She told me that she’d seen it before. I stepped into her yard, and got a few more shots before the heron flew off.

Unfortunately I don’t have a long zoom on my camera, so I’ve had to crop the pictures down a bit to make the heron obvious. In the end though, I’m pleased I got off my butt to go find it.