Something beautiful which my new friend, Kymberlee della Luce built.

Happy to be sitting in the sunshine, beneath the budding cherry tree. Four goldfinches and two chickadees are in the branches above me, and the sky is a-jumble with the herons, aroused by something or other–perhaps an eagle, the way the crows are carrying on.

It is extremely noisy this morning. The air is not still. The stream in the ravine is rushing loudly. Herons and seagulls and robins and hummingbirds, plus a flicker pounding away on a snag somewhere all add to the cacophony. The Stellar’s Jays are begging for peanuts and the crows want a piece of that, too.

There are other birds out there in the trees, but I am only beginning to learn to identify bird songs, and I don’t know the names of the birds behind these particular calls. I do know that the migratory birds are adding their transitory bits to our airwaves, arriving suddenly with their songs and then gone again as the season requires.

I imagine my world out there trying on a different feathered hat now and again, dressing up for spring.

Photo by Dan Dzurisin and used under Creative Commons licensing.

The air was below freezing at 7:30 this morning, and so still. The small birds tweeted now and again, but the herons were generally silent.

I carried my cup of coffee and my little binoculars to the edge of the ravine and peered. A few herons were perched high atop some maples along the west edge, others were tucked into branches below them and others were in nests. There was some preening going on, and one moment I just happened to catch a pair of the big birds briefly “in the act”.

The air was so sweet and the birds so charming; I realized that I could linger longer in the morning light, and I walked over to the pedestrian bridge to check things out from that vantage.

I’d only ever used my naked-eyes to check out the herons from the bridge, and it was wonderful to have some binoculars. I could finally see so much more of the structure of the rookery–very much like the photo above (except our trees are not green yet). Indeed, I started thinking of some of the sets of nests as “condos”.

I watched for a long time, observing the shapes of the birds, and the preening, and the array of feathers and colors. For the most part the birds were sedate, although there was one short instance of squawking and big flying–I surmised it to be a tussle for territory or a mate.

And then, out of nowhere, the birds rose in unison to the sky, and circled. I did not discern what provoked them, but I have seen them do this often–a sudden soaring up and away, and circling back.

This morning from my new vantage point I saw new elements of this pattern. The sentinels in the treetops had not left their posts, even while all the others soared off. And when the herons did return to the trees, many more landed in the treetops and lingered there. The rest that landed stayed in the branches; no one went straight-away to their nest.

I don’t know much about bird behavior. But I am imagining that they stayed away from the nests because it could actually be easier to defend the nests from a perch above them, where it would be easier to take flight, and to dive. Do herons fight with their beaks or their feet? Do they fight at all? I don’t know. I know that later in the season the eagles will come and harvest the hatchlings. But by then the trees will have leafed out and it will not easy to see the heron activity.

But today was a great day for watching.

Photo by Rick Leche and I am grateful to use it under Creative Commons licensing.

This evening I watch the herons landing in the big leaf maple near the house. Their nests are on the other side of the ravine, so I deduce that the ones on this side are either being shoved out of the main colony, or are here to gather sticks for building nests.

I soon see that nest-building it is.

So I don another warm jacket and settle into a chair under the cherry tree to watch. The herons circle and then land, one after another, in the bare branches at the top of the tree. They walk upon the branches like they are walking on a sandy shore, all upright and placing one twiggy leg in front of the other. Very spooky almost, like, “how can they do that?”

The branch harvesting is very careful and methodical. Each heron spends many minutes eyeing one branch after another; I am reminded of myself at the supermarket earlier today shopping for broccoli. “Ah, here’s a possibility. Nope. Oh, perhaps this one. Nope. Next one. Not that one, either.”

Finally, a branch is selected, the huge, pointy beak grasps it, and CRACK, off it comes. Then the heron opens his wings and flies off across the ravine.

Photo by Mike Baird used under Creative Commons license

The sun is dusting the treetops again this morning, and it is a mere 30°. The herons are quiet yet busy. Busy swooping momentarily through the treetops, and then perching, gazing. What do they see from there?

Photo by Mike Baird and used under Creative Commons license