blue heron

I'm amazed at how much wildlife I've seen in the 17 years I've lived in Garner. Coyotes, foxes, deer, opossum, raccoons, muskrats, beavers, snapping turtles, geese, green herons, mallards, owls, hawks, an eagle, rabbits, field rats, and a river otter. But it's the blue heron that we see the most. I love watching them fish off the pier (though I don't like the scales they leave behind) and fly in and out. We know there's more than one, but we seldom see more than one at a time. The funniest time was when we had goslings in the dog pen by the pond. It stood at the gate and stretched itself out (almost 4') and stood there and stared, turning its head side to side as if it was trying to figure out the whole setup. Our dogs don't seem to be aware of them if they're perched on the pier, but if they ever walk on our side of the pond, they start barking. For the most part the herons ignore them, unless the dogs start running toward the pond. At that point they'll take off. My lens doesn't zoom far enough from the house to get a good picture of them in action (eating, flying, preening), and if I step out on the porch or ramp for a better view, they tend to take off before I can focus. But I'm content to simply watch on occasion. I'm sure they resent me being here as they go about their business as much as I sometimes resent the builders watching me as I garden or cut grass. But it's okay. We're all a part of this world, and no one ever got sick or fell apart from simple observation - that I know of anyway.