WANNABE HERON

The urge to escape, to get away from our life—at least for a little while—is universal. Reasons, both real and imagined, are varied, but might stem from a troublesome relationship, sickness, financial woes, a job that seems to suck our life away one grinding under-paid hour at a time. Wouldn’t it be a relief, we think, to exchange identities with another person who’s richer, younger, more exciting or interesting—perhaps just skinnier or better looking?

That grass on the other side of the fence does, indeed, regularly look greener!

Apparently such fantasy urges aren’t limited to us humans, either. This morning I watched a turkey vulture gamely trying to pass himself off as a great blue heron.

The great black bird came flapping upriver, flying no more than five or six feet above the surface of the water—which, I can assure you, is most un-buzzard-like. While a vulture may fly upstream, he generally does so in a sweeping glide, riding the air instead of flapping for lift, and at least 30–40 feet above the river’s surface.

Herons, on the other hand, do indeed flap along regularly a yard or two above the water.

The odd-behaving vulture then landed on a midstream rock…and immediately stepped into the water—from which he just as quickly stepped back out, to take up a stance on the rock rather than actually in the water.

Blue herons, of course, wade around all day, and don’t mind in the least negotiating water that’s knee deep on their long, spindly legs. They will stand on a rock (or log, or ice-shelf come winter) to fish if the adjacent water is too swift or too deep. And they’re not much inclined to plod around backwater areas where the bottom is comprised of several inches of mucky silt. But mostly they wade.

The turkey vulture, on the other hand, wanted to do his fishing dry-shod. He had heron aspirations—but only to a point. Getting his feet wet was not part of the plan.

Fishing—or trying to fish—was, however. And the would-be-angler vulture really gave it a pretty good shot. Time after time he leaned close and stabbed into the water—shaking himself afterwards like a dog who has just tried drinking from a hose. Stab, shake…stab, shake…stab, shake.

What he lacked was piscatorial prowess and even a smidgen of luck. Not to mention good balance. Try as he might, he never managed to nail a fish. But the bird did repeatedly slip off the rock and into the water—which prompted as hasty a retreat as it had the first time around.

All the while, as the vulture on the rock fished and floundered, several of his buzzard compatriots watched from perches on nearby limbs. These dour peers seemed genuinely puzzled by their comrade’s antics, and perhaps a bit embarrassed.

I was kind of embarrassed, too, especially when the wannabe heron got so frustrated that he flapped around in a quick circle, landed back on the rock, slipped into the shallows again, climbed back onto the rock, and began stabbing and glaring at the water as if the river gods below the shimmering surface might be playing tricks and keeping him from savoring his rightful breakfast.

Just to keep the record straight here—I do see vultures feeding along the river from time to time. Usually they’ll be investigating a dead fish or some other bit of rotting flesh along the bank, or perhaps caught in a logjam or even a bunch of midstream rocks. So seeing a bird very near the water—even slightly in the water—isn’t itself unusual.

What was unusual was this particular vulture’s repeated attempts to catch whatever it was that was still alive and swimming around in the shallows beside the rock upon which he stood. That there was something there—alive—I have no doubt. The bird made too many lunging, often frantic, stabs into the water for it to be otherwise. Fishing behavior for sure, even if it lacked the least degree of success.

Finally, having either tired of making a fool of himself in front of witnesses, or the temporary heron fantasy having run it course, the vulture decided he’d had enough.

With a quick hop—surprisingly light and graceful—the big bird launched himself into the air and executed several powerful flaps that carried him almost to tree-top height. Then the buzzard sailed downward in a fast, steep dive, swooped over the rock, and shot back up like a roller-coaster going down a steep hill and up another one. A flap or two more and he caught a rising current, cleared the tops of the big sycamores, spiraled around, and kept rising and rising and rising, until he was no more than a dihedral speck against a vast swathe of dazzling blue.

That old buzzard might never make a fisherman…but he could soar like an angel. Sometimes reality beats fantasy.

DISGUISED BLESSING

Sunset is coming on fast here along the river. While ol’ Sol hasn’t quite slipped from sight in the west, the fiery orb is now below the tops of the big trees on the island across from the cottage, so what I see are beams of bright light radiating through the green leaves. Since the sky is clear in that direction, I don’t expect much of a light show—just a gradual dimming after the sun itself disappears below the horizon.

The turkey vultures which roost nightly in the island’s sycamores have been winging in for perhaps the last half hour. They arrive in small groups—two or three, at most a half-dozen. On nights like this, with no wind to frolic around in, they usually just sail overhead, making a cursory pass or two, before zipping into the canopy of leaves and finding a perch.

I’ve not been home most of the day. Soon after breakfast, I headed out to take care of several errands. For lunch, I visited with Susan and Hugh, friends who are residents at the retirement-care facility in the county west of here, where my late best friend, Frank, lived until his death this spring.

Susan and Hugh were both immensely fond of Frank, and Frank counted them among his dearest “neighbors.” I got acquainted with them during my visits. And I soon thought of them as friends, too. But I hadn’t been back out to visit with them since my old pal passed away—though I kept meaning to do so and even had a note to myself to get in touch and set up a date for a get-together.

In truth, however, there was a part of me that dreaded any returning—not that I dreaded to see the people, but dreaded reentering the place where I would be reminded of my friend’s absence by the emptiness. It was this cowardly hesitation that allowed me to put off, for way too long, making the time and journey.

I’ve apologized for my behavior. It was inexcusable. I hope Susan and Hugh understand and forgive me…and know I won’t let it happen again.

We did have a wonderful visit. A good meal. Lots of laughter. Reminiscing, and exchanging Frank stories. Covering everything from local history to the newspaper business to where we thought technology will be a decade from now. We talked nonstop for nearly three hours. If we’d have been sitting at a restaurant’s table, management might have stepped in and given us the boot; as it was, the only thing that swayed us from continuing until dinner was the afternoon bingo game that needed the space.

About the time our trio began to break up our talk-session, one of the local men from the community—who often brings a pup or two around from the animal shelter—stopped by the table. I knew him, as well, from my visits with Frank. Besides his dog-accompanied visiting, he’s a fellow fly fisherman and stream smallmouth aficionado. He and I spent another half hour chatting in the parking lot—looking at maps of local rivers and creeks, and checking out the tackle he carried in the back of his pickup.

I did eventually manage to get in my own pickup and start home—refreshed and buoyed by the time spent among friends. In fact, I was feeling so good that I took the long way back to the cottage, following one rural backroad after another, zig-zagging through little country towns I hadn’t been in for months.

At a small cemetery where Frank and I often parked when fishing a creek that’s accessible just up the road, I paused under a stand of ancient pines to pour a cup of coffee from the little thermos I’d filled after breakfast. Sitting on the tailgate, I took my time, enjoying the scented air and the sound of birds in the willow thickets along the stream.

Isn’t it interesting how so often in life, a thing we dread—or fear—turns out to be a blessing in disguise? I’d hesitated to return to the place where my dear old friend and I said our earthly goodbyes—hesitated because I didn’t want to experience the reminder of loss or to feel the emptiness.

Yet what I found was that I needed to be reminded of the friends still there—that I needed to share the joys of the friend we all knew and loved…and did, indeed, miss. Moreover, the expected emptiness wasn’t there because Frank was right there with us, carried in our memories and hearts.

So that’s it from the riverbank for today. Just a small report—while it’s still fresh, as I watch the sun take its leave of the western sky, as shadows lengthen, while the buzzards and I get settled into the soft embrace of another summer twilight.

MUSINGS AND HALF-RUNNER BEANS…

I have this theory…which is that as we grow older, at some point—and this might come at 30 or 60, because it’s really not about age—if we're honest and willing to be ourselves, we begin to slough off all those things in our life which are not important. Habits and interests which fail to reflect who we are. Clutter which holds no meaning. Stuff which keeps getting tangled underfoot because we really don’t care.

Such a course change requires courage, obviously, because you’re no longer hiding behind pretension, but beginning to drop the mask and reveal the real you. Egads!

Nope, such a road won't always prove easy, especially at first. It’s hard to decline to do something you’ve done before; intimidating to try something you’ve never tried, but always wanted to do. And even tougher to do this in front of your friends.

What will your friends think? Will they be disappointed? Shocked? Amused? Does your friendship thrive because of who you are…or who you’re not? By how you fit into their lives rather than they into yours?

I suggest you counter by asking yourself this…do you care? Or is it, perhaps, time to find new friends?

However, this new path has its rewards, the corollary of personal freedom, which makes room for meaning and fulfillment. Not because you've lowered your sights, or downsized your expectations; it isn’t the outgrowth of lessening values. It’s because so many things that occupied space and demanded time and energy were empty, unsatisfying, valueless. We might not have been willing to admit this, but we knew, deep down, how we really always felt. It wasn't us; didn't fit.

You see this with ever greater clarity as you begin to enjoy being yourself, as truly meaningful things start to take their rightful place—and time and space and energy becomes yours. Freedom is always a reward worth seeking. As is honesty and truth.

I thought about this while I was sitting in the rocker on my front deck, stringing and breaking a mess of half-runner beans. The river was chuckling merrily along. Cicadas were ratcheting from the hackberries and box elders. The hummingbirds were squeaking and squabbling over whose turn it was to sip sugar water from the feeder.

The beans came from an older neighbor lady up the road who sells her excess garden produce from a makeshift table in front of her garage. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, garlic, sweet corn. The price is right, and the items are fresh-picked, organically-grown, and of excellent quality. I’m lucky to have such a handy source of good vegetables.

I’d been hoping she would have extra half-runner beans this year. I grew up eating home-grown beans—half-runners, Kentucky wonders, rattkesnakes, old homesteads. Beans you had to string and break…but beans with real flavor. None of those no-work, no-taste varieties.

Cooked slowly in a kettle with a bit of salt pork for a couple of hours, until tender, and served with fresh green onions, sliced cucumbers, tomatoes still warm from the sun, and a pone of genuine cornbread—none of that sweetened stuff!—with a pat of butter slipped inside the steaming wedge. Oh, my…oh, my…oh, my!

A simple pleasure. But then, it turns out when I’m not chasing false dreams, I’m a pretty simple guy, in a maybe complicated sort of way.

And on this beautiful Sunday morning, with sunlight streaming through the sycamore leaves, the land lush and green and vibrant with life—and the old, familiar, wonderful scent of half-runner beans cooking on the kitchen stove, it's delightful fragrance occasionally wafting out to where I sit rocking on my deck to remind me of the pleasures ahead—I’m also very, very rich.

PHOTOGENIC WASTELAND

The latter half of this week has been unexpectedly busy, which is my excuse—the best I can come up with—for not putting up a post for a few days.

I have, however, been trying to shoot photos whenever and wherever I can.

An hour ago I stopped by my local Sam’s Club pharmacy to pick up a prescription. The photos here were the result of a fifteen minute session at edge of an old field which abuts the back side of the Sam’s parking lot. All were found growing within a space of perhaps twenty feet, and I never stepped off the pavement to make a shot.

The field is really just a ten-acre patch of land cleared some years ago when various restaurants, motels, and retailers began moving into the area. For whatever reasons, this large lot has yet to be used, and has more-or-less reverted back to a semi-wild state.

Weeds dominate—as they always do in most such places. But one man’s weeds are another man’s wildflowers…and even the most noxious weed can oftentimes offer a vision of splendor if you look close.

II suppose most would look on such a place within an industrialized area as just a bit of wasteland. Not worthy of a second glance. But only man produces true wastelands; nature always has a few tricks up her sleeve, and given half a chance, churns out beauty.

I intend to bring my camera along the next time I visit Sam’s—and to allow myself a bit more exploration time.

Who knows what visual treasures the old field holds?

DAMSELS DELIGHT!

Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta)

I spent an hour yesterday afternoon chasing damsels around the woodpile.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking…what will it be next? Maidens in the mulch bin? Ingénues among the box elders? Has someone been sprinkling Viagra in his oatmeal?

Nope. We’re talking bugs—insects in the Order Odonata; like dragonflies, only skinnier. You can tell the difference because the damselfly’s quad wings at rest are held alongside or above, parallel to the body, rather than the way the bulkier, larger dragonfies do it—stuck out like wings on an airplane. And speaking of bodies, they come in every hue of the rainbow—red and green and blue and orange, even purple; some are iridescent, and seem to glow like neon. A king’s ransom in jewels, flying so fast the eye can scarcely follow.

The names of these beautiful damselflies are as lovely as the insects themselves—Azure Bluet, Ebony Jewelwing, American Rubyspot, Blue-fronted Dancer, Emerald Spreadwing, Sedge Sprite, Citrine Forktail. Exquisite winged creatures masquerading as living poems.

Either a Blue-fronted Dancer (Argia apicalis),

or a female blue phase Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta)

At rest a damselfly appears fragile, harmless, as if it might exist only for its beauty. Yet damselflies, like their dragonfly cousins, are aerial predators, darting carnivores whose prey consists of small insects such as mosquitoes and midges. They are superb and deadly hunters. In fact, the damselfly’s Order name, Odonata, means “toothed ones.” Of course we gigantic humans have no worries, as a dragonfly is incapable of chewing on anything larger than the tiniest flies. And contrary to what the entomologically challenged might proclaim, damselflies absolutely cannot sting.

Damselflies begin life underwater, when a female lays her eggs in a stream or pond, bog, fen, marsh, even a roadside ditch that holds water year around. The eggs hatch into nymphs which undergo incomplete metamorphosis (that simply means they go through three stages—egg, nymph, adult, skipping the pupa stage) molting several times as they grow and develop. They might spend several years underwater before emerging as the eye-catching adult you see flying around.

Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta)

There are at least a half dozen species of damselflies frequenting the area around my woodpile—though the stack is located more than a hundred feet from the river. I’ve recently become enamored with making their portraits, though my camera technique still needs serious improvement. So far, I’ve only managed to produce reasonably good shots of a couple of species.

Also, my identification capabilities are shaky at best, not to be trusted, open to correction. When I can scrape up a few extra bucks, I intend to order a copy of The Dragonflies and Damselflies of Ohio, by Glotzhober and McShaffrey, which appears to be the best work on the subject.

Still, you don’t have to know the names to appreciate their beauty. Their graceful form and stunning colors are a beguiling delight to the eye.

HERON ON THE ROCKS

Blue heron on the rocks. Sounds like a drink you’d order in an eco-bar. Some little hole-in-the-wall place in the bowels of a dank city, no sign outside, known only to the cognoscenti, where those too long deprived of woods and waters and fresh air come to drown their troubles.

The pinups on the wall would be posters of mountains and wildflowers and smog-free blue sky. The jukebox might play such tunes as “Burbling Stream,” “Wind Through the Pines,” and ”Bullfrogs On the Bayou.”

A place of rescue and refuge where a man, wearied and numbed by the concrete and glass and crowded sidewalks, feeling like a rat lost in a maze after the day’s grind of traffic and all the buying and selling and deal-making, could stumble in, blink a time or two, then belly up to the bar and order: “Gimmie a blue heron on the rocks…and make it a double!”

There have been many occasions during the various incarnations of what I euphemistically call my career, when I have been that drained and bewildered town-trapped man. Had such a watering hole been available, I would have become a daily patron…

Yes, dear folks, this is the real me. No need to smoke leaves from those funny weeds that grow up the road. Just put me out in the yard with the dog early in the morning, before I’ve yet achieved my usual caffeine buzz, and my squirrelly brain is apt to go skating off on some bizarre, fantastical tangent simply because I glanced up the river and saw a familiar feathered fisherman standing patiently at the head end of the island.

The rising sun was just brushing its warm light across the water. Tendrils of fog still swirled in the shadows. The nearby world was green and soft and filled with a comfortable quiet broken only by the ringing lilt of a Carolina wren in the thicket by the driveway.

As I watched, the heron stepped onto a rock, then stepped back down into the shallow water. And kept he kept repeating this over and over—up, down, up down. I wondered if the bird was undecided about getting his feet wet? Or was he just acting like I often do in the mornings?

I understand such early-morning indecisiveness because I regularly find myself vacillating over the most mundane matters…do I want one handful of raisins in my oatmeal or two? It’s as if my brain, not yet fully committed to reasoning or reaching a decision, gets stuck in dithering mode…should I pour my coffee into the blue mug or the red one?

I’m not even gong to ask if anyone else has a similar affliction. But trust me, there are often times just after I arise when I stand in the kitchen and have to ask myself—what am I trying to think about?

Fortunately, a half hour and a cup or two of coffee and I’m up to speed, everything functioning as well as can be expected. And apparently, something finally kicked in with the heron.

After standing immobile for perhaps a quarter hour, looking upstream and down, but never into the water, the gangly slate-colored bird shook himself and seemed ready to get down to business. He hunched and began stepping slowly upstream—careful, his posture alert and coiled, ready to strike, as he was peered intently into the murky shallows.

Sometimes, the best fishing of the day comes with the burgeoning light. As a fellow fishermen, I understand such matters from long experience on many streams. Just as I understand that mornings on the water are best enjoyed in solitude, without an audience.

I turned, whistled softly to the dog, and we headed back inside.

SUNBATHING QUEEN

One of the things I’m occasionally asked by visitors to the riverbank is: “You got a lot of snakes around?”

Most of the time, it’s a good bet the questioner lives in the city—or if they’re daring, and have in their own way given in to the pioneer spirit, in one of those well-manicured suburban developments with sidewalks and grass and the odd miniature tree your average countryman might consider a bush. Sure, their development may be located less than a half-mile beyond the last strip-mall, in what was once a corn or soybean field—but they consider themselves homesteaders surviving on the edge of civilization. Why, they'll report, proud of their ability to weather hardship, they have to actually get in their Beemer and drive to the nearest Starbucks!

These folks, bless their trembling souls, view my riverside home as they might a rough compound on the banks of the Amazon. The thicket of greenery along the water and the tall trees poking high into a smog-free sky is, to them, a jungle. And like any good jungle remembered from reruns of the old black-and-white Tarzan movies they watched as a kid, the dark tangles of willow and hackberry and sycamore must doubtless be crammed with slithering serpents.

Well…no. Sorry to disappoint. But we riverbankers are no more overrun with snakes than we are with frogs and toads and turtles. I do see a snake from time to time—perhaps a small garter snake in the yard, or a water snake near or in the stream. And that’s about the extent of such encounters; I don’t wade through masses of writhing snakes to check the mailbox.

Regarding water snakes, there are two species found hereabouts. The northern water snake, Nerodia sipedon, is generally the most common species seen along local lakeshores and streams. Yet I almost never find one on my section of water. Instead, I’m more apt to see a queen snake, Regina septemvittata, a fairly uncommon member of the water snake family.

Queen snakes, in spite of their name, are water snakes—though they’re far prettier than their plebian northern cousins. Neither snake is poisonous. But the northern water snake is unquestionably more cantankerous and aggressive—quick to make a threatening strike at your boot toe or reaching hand, and ready to bite if you pick them up carelessly. If that’s not enough, they’ll reiterate their hostility by releasing a squirt of malodorous feces and back it up with a shot of stinky musk from their anal gland.

The shyer queen snake, in contrast, is rather docile. You can usually capture one quite easily—though the double dose of foul smelling s

cent remains a possibility.

Queen snakes seldom grow larger than a couple of feet. They hunt by smell rather than heat detection or sight, and often capture their prey under water. They feed almost exclusively on aquatic fare—minnows, tadpoles, frogs, snails—though the bulk of their diet is newly molted crayfish, what a bait fishermen calls a “soft craw.” For this reason—because crayfish are found only in clean, unpolluted rivers and creeks—queen snakes are a good indicator species of a stream’s high water quality.

I sometimes watch a queen snake hunting around the edge of the big pool in front of the cottage. The snake will swim from rock-to-rock, then dive and investigate underwater, resurface, and repeat a time or two before moving to another location.

The other day I noted several clumps of midges milling about on a small section of slowly-backswirling water. Minnows would regularly dart up and nab a bug off the surface. All the while, a queen snake kept surfacing and diving through this same area, presumably feeding on the minnows working the midges.

The queen snakes in the photos (there are two different snakes) regularly sun themselves on the rails of the narrow deck which spans the width of the cottage and overlooks the river. I’ve allowed a wild grape vine to grow all over the water side of this deck, climbing through the lattice so it now drapes from the handrail to the edge of the water, a dozen feet below, like a thick green curtain. One day last week, I counted three queen snakes…uh…hanging around.

This is typical queen snake behavior. Queen snakes like to bask on a limb or root above the water, and usually drop off immediately at any nearby movement or the first hint of danger. However, with my deck snakes, I’ve found that if I’m careful, I can move freely around without causing them alarm.

Incidentally, this deck—while thirty feet long—is only about six feet wide. In case you’re wondering, I’ve never seen one of these queen snakes any closer to the cottage walls than this six-foot distance; they’re remain discreetly on the water side.

I suppose for most readers, this sounds like too many snakes too close to the house. But I don’t mind them being around. They’re perfectly harmless (unless you’re a soft craw) and no trouble. That’s sufficient to make them good neighbors, in my book. Plus I like the fact they keep reminding me that my beloved river is healthy.