Category Archives: Great Blue Heron

Sea Mammal Rock

I would call this sea mammal rock if I wasn’t inadvertently sitting on the remains of a river otter’s meal. From the amount of scat and empty shells, it must be a favorite meal spot for the big weasels.

On prior visits Aki and I have looked down on harbor seals raising their curious heads into the air and watched a raucous pod of stellar sea lions swim around us on a high tide. Today two humpback whales feed just a quarter-mile away.

One of the whales is two-thirds the size of the other and I wonder if they are related. They are all business. We see no showy breaches or even an iconic flash of a tail framed against the sky. They just feed like they would at the end of a fast. Have they just returned from Hawaii, where humpbacks are so busy procreating they don’t eat? Or are they part of the minority that stays all year in Alaska waters?

Concentrating on the whales, I don’t notice that my little dog has begun shivering. Stiffly, I rise up, poke my head over the rock edge like a curious otter, and lead Aki back into the woods.

Preserving the Mystery

We head out North Douglas Highway to a path taken often to the sea. As I always do on this walk, I stop where a beaver pond pushes against a row of old growth spruce and look at the feeder stream curving out of sight. What lies around that corner? I plan on bringing the canoe here so I can answer that question. I think, once again, that I should have explored the creek during last winter’s cold spell when strong ice covered it. But this summer, there will be no canoe expedition into the darkest recesses of the muskeg it drains. I’ll move past it on my way to the more dramatic beach even during next winter’s cold winter. Does something in me want to preserve the mystery? If Aki is stuck in similar mental loops, she is too busy to say. She has squirrels to chase and pee messages to leave dog friends.

Do Angels Fly Like Herons?

It is Heron Day on the Sheep Creek delta. True, there is one bald eagle perched on the number 2 navigation marker and the usual scattering of mallards, scoters, and gulls on the beach. But I am drawn to three great blue herons.

Aki finds a lumbering golden retriever to circle as I snap pictures of the herons. Two are as rigid as tide markers. A third, perhaps made uncomfortable by the playing dogs, trots into the wind with wings extended and lets itself be lifted by the breeze off the beach. Once airborne, the big bird turns sharply and glides to a stop 30 feet down the beach.

After the flying heron resettles itself, I notice that rather than extend its long neck for optimal viewing of the small fish it usually hunts, one of the other herons hunkers down. He looks like the skulking villain in a melodrama. I figure out why when I enlarge a fuzzy photo I took of him and see a pan sized fish dangling from its beak. His catch must be too large for the little snap head back and swallow technique I’ve seen herons use to eat prey.

Looking at Douglas Mountain range reflected in the channel on this rare blue sky day, I wonder if angels take flight like herons. Do they unfurl wings as wide as they are tall, curl them into a aerodynamic foil, and float off the earth?