Unless I go back to the campsite for a chair, I’m pretty sure who is going to win this waiting game. Great blue herons make a living stalking prey; my patience too often flutters.
I was walking the shoreline of this sluggish flowage, scaring frogs and taking photos of wetland plants, when the heron lifted in a rush from an old elm tree. Branches hanging over the water framed the bird’s getaway.
I had startled the heron, which in turn startled me. It flapped away on a 6-foot wingspan in a serious of screamy squawks piercing the silence on this dew-laden morning. The heron saw me before I saw it. Was I not paying attention?
Now, the heron is in the middle of the flowage, where lily pads and clumps of algae cover much of the water surface. The heron looked large when it took off, and still does, perched on a small dead branch poking out of the water. A great blue stands over 4 feet tall. This one is that and more.
My camera lens finds a portal between low branches and shoreline grasses. It’s not much of a photo, considering I missed the dramatic, close-up takeoff. My attention had been on frogs and flowers, and so I was guilty of not being ready for “now you don’t see it, now you do.”
The heron knows I’m here, so there’s no chance it will come back to its morning perch in the tree. In what I interpret as showing off after its escape, the big bird begins preening, using its dagger beak to rub its chest and get beneath its feathers, one outstretched wing at a time.
Meanwhile, the lazy morning meanders on along this 29-acre shallow flowage created by a dam on a slow and low river between the campground and village. I can’t say there’s stunning natural beauty here, or that the algal blooms riding murky green mats don’t smell. But I grew up along this river, so it’s all good with me.
The natural beauty is in the life on this nearly stagnant water. A kingfisher perches on a wire, silhouetted against the sky. An osprey flies over, a bald eagle circles. Though not known as a fishing lake, the heron, kingfisher, osprey and eagle know there are several species of fish “present,” as my Wisconsin lakes book puts it. Translated to avian language, there’s variety on the menu.
I begin looking at an array of wetland plants in late August: sweet flag, broadleaf cattail, and broadleaf arrowhead. Water plantain is in bloom with a spot of yellow at its base of three white petals. Pale smartweed blooms in drooping spikes of pink.
Jewelweed catches my eye. How can I not focus on the jewelweed? There hang the showy two-lipped flowers in reddish-orange with beads of dew on petals hiding a cornucopia-shaped pouch of nectar. Bees and hummingbirds know about the nectar. They use the lower lip of two fused petals as a landing pad.
Speaking of landing, a frog suddenly jumps and disappears below the muck, breaking my jewelweed fascination and concentration. I check for the heron. It’s still there. Perhaps I’ll get that chair.
Note: Want to read more nature essays like this? My book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available through online book sellers and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s. For a personally-signed copy, email me at davegreschner@icloud.com.
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