Evening Herons

The other day Mark and I ditched the dog and went for a walk through Delta Ponds.   I'm trying to remember when the last time I went was, and I think it was a month ago -- or something.  Like so many events during the COVID19 pandemic (and now the Black Lives Matter protests), past visits to the Ponds seem to have happened in previous life or on a different planet.

Since my last visit, the underbrush and trees have sprouted out and created verdant tunnels around the pond-side paths.  It's very mysterious, and good for stealing gay smooches, but it does block the view of the lake.

From an observation deck, we saw an osprey sitting on its distant tower nest, but the photos I took were too blurry.  I think there may have been baby osprey in the nest, but I only caught sight of a raised wing or two through the camera's LCD.  The song of the osprey carries far across the water.

Retraced our steps, Mark saw a rat tail hiding behind a concrete railing.  We took a few steps closer and the rat sprinted along the fence, leapt into the air, and scurried up a tree.  In retrospect, if squirrels can climb trees, and if rats can scamper up ropes to stowaway onto boats, I shouldn't have been surprised they climb trees; but it was unsettling.

Deja vu accompanied the rat, and the particulars of the morning's dream returned to me:  I had been in a dystopian English prep school; the instructors' voices came over speakers; the school itself was a maze of metal corridors, with mechanical instruments on articulated metal arms unfolding out of the walls; there was a swimming pool, surrounded by a metal railing, and steps descending down to fog-shrouded, murky water; mysterious, many-legged, human-sized insects lived in the pool.   In the dream the insects would pull you into the water, not to drown you, but to try to rescue you from the school.  It was very much like a Dr. Who episode (probably "Paradise Towers").   Looking over the railing over the pond, I half-expected to see a many-armed insect surface next to the log usually used by turtles to sunbathe.  

Later, walking over a bridge, Mark noticed a green heron fishing underneath us.  The heron had the perfect spot for fishing.  All it had to do was wait and the current flowing under the bridge would bring the fish right by its feet.   It would slowly stretch out, leaning over the stream and -- SPLASH! -- pluck a fish out of the water with its spearpoint beak.  We watched it catch five fish in as many minutes.

We lingered around the ponds and looked for more herons, but the only animals visible were ducks, geese, and nutria.  Mark enjoys the nutria, and I think they're kind of like mutant beavers or oversized water rats.  The light was fading; the last few days have been very cloudy, so instead of yellow-orange sunlight angling in over the waters, the sunset was an ambiguous smear from white-grey to shadow-grey.

As we walked back, Mark stopped again and pointed out another heron on the other side of a screen of greenery.  I thought it might be a white heron we'd seen before discovering the fishing green heron, but it was a different one.  I managed, for once, to convince the camera to actually focus on the heron and not the leaves and twigs in front of me.  The daylight had faded enough so that the local streetlights had turned on, and the ripples of reflecting light limned the heron, which was mostly facing me.   The light reminded me of a painting, "Midsummer Eve, C.1908" by Edward Robert Hughes, only now that I'm referencing the painting, in a much less twee fashion.