A great blue heron (Ardea herodias), impales a fish at Colonel Sam Smith Park Thursday, June 17. © BCP 2010
What a day! A perfect June day. Sunny and warm, like most beautiful summer days. But today was elevated to perfection by the loveliest cool breeze that kept it from being swelteringly hot.
My first foray today was to Rattray Marsh, where I spent a couple of hours exploring the lakeshore walk. Although I saw some interesting plants and songbirds, I didn’t have the best luck with waterfowl. I was hoping to see a coot, maybe, or a green heron, like the last time I was there. Next time maybe.
My next stop was Colonel Sam Smith Park, where I have always had great luck with the waterfowl. Today was no exception.
The first thing that hit me as I got to the bay was the racket being made by the red-necked grebes. There were two pairs of grebes, arguing furiously between themselves. Not sure if it was a territory dispute, or what. I’ll check into that.
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Looking to the east downtown from the park. High UV + traffic jam gridlock = murk. © BCP 2010
Just past the grebes I came across a great blue heron fishing. I got a couple of shots off of the heron, who then took off across the bay.
I kept on going around the bay, and encountered the heron again, as you can see from the picture above. I took a succession of photos of this heron fishing — very successfully, obviously — and will post the sequence soon.
(More horrendous computer problems today, so am just posting this one picture right now in case everything goes kerflooey again. That’s the technical term for something in between the fatal error — grey screen of death, again — and the simply moribund. Yup, I’m somewhere between the two right now, so better get this post up before it’s too late.)
About the picture at left. Up on the high ground of the park, I looked back towards the city — to the east — to see what the downtown looked like, and was shocked at how hazy it was. There’s no doubt traffic is as messed up as it has ever been, what with all the security barriers going up and already in place for the G20 summit.
Let’s see. About a billion bucks and counting. No extra charge for the bad air.
One last thing. Be sure to check out Today’s Quote. It’s about herons. (Sort of.)
© BCP 2010
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