What the Heron Had for Lunch
Riding north up the bike path this afternoon I veered off and cruised through El Dorado park. A couple of great blue herons were on the grass nearby, and it reminded me of a revelatory observation I had near the same spot a couple of years ago. At that time, sitting on the grass in the park, reading a book, I was amid a group of five great egrets and two blue herons holding court within a fifty yard radius. They were doing their regular thing: standing immobile, occasionally walking in their stately slow-motion fashion. I pondered what they eat while they’re out at the park. Insects, I guessed. Usually I would see them perched on rocks in the San Gabriel River adjacent to the bike trail. I was reading a Joe Kurtz novel by Dan Simmons. Toughest hard-boiled P.I. there is, bar none. I glanced up, and there’s a great blue heron about thirty feet from me. I watched him carefully. He was beautiful! Magnificent even. He crouched down, and I assumed he was making himself smaller because I was so close.
Suddenly, he whipped his head forward, jabbed his head in the grass, and came up with a field mouse in his beak. A little mouse about four inches long. In a few seconds he had gulped it down, and I could see the big bulge in his neck. I was dumbfounded. “Holy crap,” I whispered, a big smile creasing my face. So that’s what they eat! I was sorry my father-in-law Philip wasn’t there to witness this episode. He’s the birder, not me. And I wished I had my camera, to capture the image of the bloated throat.
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Little episodes like that, coming out of nowhere amidst our daily grind, are part of what makes life in the Shore so rewarding, especially for those, like myself, living on the cutting edge of banality. With this blog, we’ll observe and report about items affecting our life in the Shore, with an emphasis on the small things, the cool things, the crazy things. And we’ll be sure to poke some fun at the ridiculous thing that our neighbors, both the mundane and the adventurous, find so fascinating.