THE HERON PROJECT: Part 1

THE HERON PROJECT

Part 1

     It was February 14, Valentine’s Day, and my self-imposed task that morning was to photograph the several goldeneye and bufflehead ducks who had taken up winter residence on “Walden,” the small, private lake behind my home. The weather was cold and overcast, having rained the previous day and night, with the promise of more rain to come; one might say, “Great weather for ducks.” Goldeneyes and their cousins the buffleheads tend to be a little shy and prefer to swim farther from shore than, for example, mallards. In order to get as close as possible, I had to slowly, quietly make my way beneath the trees along the shore.

     Even though the early morning light was less than ideal, I took my photos and started to move away from the lake when I was aware of something moving directly above me. I looked up and there was a magnificently large bird, a male great blue heron in the branches of a tree, right over my head. To date there had not been any herons on “Walden” and rarely had I had a chance to be so close to one. The closest I had ever been to one that I can recall was when I came upon one while kayaking, almost drifting, in a back water channel, a bayou of sorts, at Lake Natoma near Sacramento. We were perhaps ten feet apart at the most and to my surprise the great bird did nothing but watch me drift by. The bird above me today was wary, trying to conceal himself I the branches, but after a few moments he became used to my presence and went about his business of examining fallen twigs caught in the branches: poking them, turning them, and moving them about. The thought occurred to me that he just might be looking for nesting materials and indeed, that is precisely what he was doing. In a few minutes, he grabbed several of the sticks he had selected in his bill and took off across the lake.

 

     I tried to follow his flight through my telephoto lens and was lucky enough not to lose sight of him despite the branches above and around me, taking my eye to a tall pine tree located on an island in the lake, where high up in its branches his mate was waiting for him and his cargo.

     For me this was a real treat indeed - a nesting pair of herons at "Walden" - and I decided that if at all possible, I would make photographing these two great birds my project for the next few months or as long as they were here, as you shall see in the articles that follow.

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