Also at the Lower Falls

Also at the Lower Falls in McKinney Falls State Park on April 15th I saw a great blue heron, Ardea herodias. According to John Tveten, this is the largest of our herons, standing some 4 ft. (1.2m) tall. Of the various pictures that I took of it, I’ve chosen to show this one because of the curious way the line of the bird’s bill, with its orange-brown lower part, seemed to me from a distance to follow around into the similarly colored and presumably iron-rich stain on the rock behind it that was roughly a mirror image of the heron’s neck. Notice how the dark patch on the bird’s shoulder also finds echoes in the dark depressions in the rock.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman