Beau Goes SQUAWWNK! And Skedaddles

Great Blue Heron In Flight

Beau is our name for the beautiful Great Blue Heron who fishes in a nearby salt marsh.

Many’s the time in the past week that I stood on dock’s edge, shooting frame after frame, guessing wrongly that in the next frame, Beau might burst into flight.

Beau, however, is a patient angler, sometimes bending his neck to preen or extending it periscope-fashion, but rarely permitting the merest glimpse of a wing-feather.

And yet. If I turn my head just a moment, then turn back— he’s gone.

How, heaven knows.

Five days of this and I’m tempted to give him up for easier subjects. But then I ask inwardly, WWBD—what would Beau do?

He’d persist, that’s what. And so do I.

Finally, yesterday, a loud SQUAWWWNK! comes from Beau’s customary place. Muscle memory responds and before I can think to act, my camera fires a bunch of frames. When I look up to see what I might have been shooting— he’s gone.

But lo! When I replay the last second of photographs — there he is! Wings spread! Not exactly airborne yet, but pretty much flying.

Oh yes, I know why Herons call. Chances are Beau was calling to a mate. But might it just be possible Beau was weary of watching me watching him all week long?

Might it be he was saying “Here I go, human—click the damned shutter!”

Buy prints of photo #1, featured above 

Buy prints of photo #2, shown below

Buy prints of photo #3, below

Buy prints of photo #4, below

Beau Squawawnks and Skedaddles, #2 of 4
#2 in a collection of 4 photographs. Golly those blue-grey wings cover a lot of marshgrass!
#3 in a collection of 4 photographs. Then came a Squawawnk! And when I replayed the frames shot by muscle memory…this!
#4 in a collection if 4 photographs. And this! And…how?

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