The great egrets are mostly gone from the marsh out back now, but for a few stragglers that visit now and again. They first showed up around April 2, and most stayed for a couple of weeks. Their numbers peaked at twenty-one on April 7th (about two-thirds juveniles), all in about a quarter of an acre. Our neighbors Johnny and Annie, who have been here eleven years, had never seen a whole colony visiting.
Here’s one shot of a juvenile with the rented lens I used (Canon 100-400mm and 1.4 Extender); it was perched on top of a telephone pole some twenty yards out.
It occurred to me after the fact that I could have worked the nest building (see below) into this wider perspective, where more of the habitat is revealed. Consider it one that got away. It’s not the first, and won’t be the last. Two important lessons here: 1) the skill set that photography requires can get rusty, especially in the ability to see beyond formulaic approaches, and 2) ALWAYS try different perspectives. Doing the second helps with the first.
The wind was steady at about 15 MPH left to right at the time, which made this osprey’s efforts all the more amazing. This was taken some seventy yards out with a Canon 100-400mm rental about an hour before it went back.
A colony of great egrets has discovered the marsh out behind our neighbor’s house. There’s usually at least one out there all day, and sometimes as many as twenty, two thirds of them juveniles. Initially skittish on approach, they seem to be OK now, particularly with a fence and brush and phragmites between us.
Sometimes the contrast between the enormity of this universe, and our lives here on earth, can seem so overwhelming that I have to throttle it back, and consider it only in dribs and drabs.
Around our house, we have an expression for these moments: “…this world…”. It’s a simple phrase but one usually articulated with a depth of feeling from places not normally accessed, expressing anything from deep disgust and despair to the warmest empathy and compassion, to wonder and gratitude.
Sometimes the tone is accusatory (HOW CAN/DOES THIS EXIST!!), sometimes prayerful (how can/does this exist, and, well, thank you !!), and sometimes just a witnessing.
Anne Lamott’s fine book, “Help, Thanks, Wow” explores these notions further, and, if you were to read only one book on prayer, it’s the one I would recommend.
Here’s one from the article that captures the gestalt of the whole day nicely – coming into the barnyard for the drop off – the day’s work nearly done, for the oxen anyway.
The great egrets are mostly gone from the marsh out back now, but for a few stragglers that visit now and again. They first showed up around April 2, and most stayed for a couple of weeks. Their numbers peaked at twenty-one on April 7th (about two-thirds juveniles), all in about a quarter of an acre. Our neighbors Johnny and Annie, who have been here eleven years, had never seen a whole colony visiting.
