Saturday, May 5, 2012

Great blue herons to the rescue

We conquered the sleep-deprived grumpies today by getting out into nature.  (Is it just us, or do full moons drastically affect sleep in your house, too?)

A friend recently told us about a hike we had to take, to a great-blue-heron rookery, from a downtown neighborhood, of all places!
The last time we went (a few weeks ago), we saw the herons building their nests.  Today, Lucy and I returned and found them all sitting on the nests.
It's so bizarre to see these big huge birds perched high in the trees like that!
Right next door to the herons is a bald eagle, also nesting.
It's a truly amazing sight.

Closer to earth, we saw a garter snake,
 a tuft of unidentified fur (a mystery to ponder), lots of animal holes, big fat bumblebees, some butterflies, red-winged blackbirds, wood ducks, and heard many, many different bird calls.
 It was amazing to see that the brown woods we'd visited so recently was now lush and green. (And completely full of poison ivy!  We kept our bodies small and centered on the path.)

Later, we went out to dinner with friends, followed by dessert and dandelion-blowing in a little park in the center of our town.

And when bedtime came and went by an hour, with no sign of sleep, I got Lucy back out of bed and into the car and we went in search of the "supermoon."  We caught glimpses of it through the trees in all its huge orange glory, and continued looking for a good viewing spot as it rose, lightened, and got hidden by clouds.

It was well worth the extra-late bedtime.

My best cure for a difficult day--take it outside and breathe in the wonders of nature.

2 comments:

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

Great photos.

Those nests are just awesome. Unfortunately, we did not get to see the moon at all yesterday, it was just too cloudy although we did stay up hoping to catch it.

Meryl said...

Oh wow! That is amazing! What an incredible birding spot!