egret – Page 2 – In the Woods

busy, busy, busy

5.25.18 ~ great egret at Eastern Point Beach

The fatigue from radiation has finally gone away, just in time! I’ve been neglecting my blog because we’ve had a lot of company and I’ve been over the moon cooking for them, having folks at my table again, and getting out and about with them.

Nate tells me someone has been trying to hack my blog, several times, and he’s spent hours investigating and remotely taking measures to protect it. I am so grateful he knows what he’s doing!

A new little brother or sister for Katherine will be arriving in Ireland near the end of October!!! Of course I will be spending a month or two over there to help out. Wouldn’t miss this big event for the world. 🙂

5.25.18 ~ Eastern Point Beach ~ Tim, Aunt Delorma and Allegra ~ when I suddenly noticed I was being watched
while taking pictures of the great egret

I’ve taken a Photoshop course at the senior center so I’m looking forward to using my new skills. We’re still taking our Tai Chi class. Not sure I will ever master it. If I pay attention to my leg movements then my arm movements and breathing can’t seem to stay coordinated. And vice versa. But I get an “A” for effort and the instructor is very encouraging.

On Friday my sister and I are flying to West Virginia to visit our aunt and cousin. We’ve never been there before so it will be a new experience. I hope to bring back some good pictures. The last and only time Beverly and I have flown together was in 1974 when we flew home from Greece.

In September Tim & I will be driving to Kentucky for our niece’s wedding and a 3-day family reunion immediately afterwards. On our way home we plan to stop at a few places in western New York to do some family history research.

So much to look forward to!

dinnertime

7.17.17 ~ great egret at Eastern Point Beach

While Tim & I were eating our supper at the beach last night we noticed a great egret fishing for a meal. After we finished I decided to see how close I could get to him for some pictures. He didn’t seem to notice me at all, his attention was so focused on fish in the water.

Got it!

The fish put up a good struggle but the egret kept at it until he got the fish in the right position to gulp it down.

It was really over quite fast ~ my eye didn’t see as much as the “sports” setting on the camera was able to capture.

I’m amazed he didn’t drop the fish at some point!

Ready to swallow!

And then it was gone. Followed by a quick sip of water…

Since he was still studying the water I wondered if he was preparing for another strike or if he needed to wait a little to make room for more.

My sister and I saw a great egret fishing at the beach back in 2013, but I didn’t have my camera that morning. This is the first time I got a picture of one with a fish in its mouth! I’m still bubbling with excitement. 🙂

For 32 years the concession stand at our beach was run by Bob & Pat Garcia, but sadly, Pat died this past April. We miss them terribly! Their foot-long hot dogs were inexpensive and very high quality. We always had one with sauerkraut on it. Someone else is running the stand now and we’re doing our best to get used to the change. The hot dogs and sauerkraut are not nearly as good. But last night we sampled a handcrafted hamburger and decided we could live with that and continue our summer tradition, slightly altered.

I haven’t seen my gull friend with the mangled foot this year, so that is making me a little melancholy, as well. But having a chance to photograph the great egret catching his dinner brightened my mood considerably. 🙂

strawberry full moonlight

6.9.17 ~ Avery Pond ~ great egret by Timothy Rodgers

It looks like Tim has found a new way to unwind after work ~ taking more great pictures!

6.9.17 ~ Avery Point Light with full strawberry moon by Timothy Rodgers

Full strawberry moon! Signal to start gathering strawberries!

a point of connection

6.2.17 ~ Avery Pond, Groton, Connecticut
great egret by Timothy Rodgers

The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.
~ Susan Meiselas
(Whitney Museum of American Art: Handbook of the Collection)

black-crowned night heron (?) by Timothy Rodgers

One evening last week Tim took the camera down to the beach and the salt pond and came home with these beautiful shots! I’m pretty sure the bird above is a black-crowned night heron, but if I’m wrong I hope someone will correct me…

The swan, like the soul of the poet,
By the dull world is ill understood.
~ Heinrich Heine
(Early Poems, Evening Songs)

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
~ Ansel Adams
(3000 Astounding Quotes)

double-crested cormorant by Timothy Rodgers

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
~ Dorothea Lange
(Ancestors in the Attic: Making Family Memorabilia into History)

courting pair of double-crested cormorants by Timothy Rodgers

before the storm

9.2.16.4110 — 9.2.16 ~ juvenile laughing gull

Five days ago there were a lot of birds at the beach, perhaps getting ready for Tropical Storm Hermine… I had some fun trying to identify the different stages of life of the laughing gulls…

9.2.16.4126 — 9.2.16 ~ non-breeding adult? or first summer? laughing gull

9.2.16.4130 — 9.2.16 ~ non-breeding adult? or first summer? laughing gull

9.2.16.4144 — 9.2.16 ~ non-breeding adult? or first summer? laughing gull

We had a few gusts of wind which ruffled some feathers…

9.2.16.4154 — 9.2.16 ~ laughing gull with feathers puffed up from a gust of wind

I wondered if the cormorants would be staying out on their island during the storm…

9.2.16.4162 — 9.2.16 ~ cormorants on their exclusive off shore island

The baby great black-backed gull wondered if we would be handing out a french fry. Tim had unintentionally dropped one recently, renewing hopes for some of the younger birds…

9.2.16.4165 — 9.2.16 ~ juvenile great black-backed gull

My friend knows better — he’s content to visit with us. 🙂

9.2.16.4194 — 9.2.16 ~ my herring gull friend with the mangled foot

We also saw a great egret — they don’t often come this close, preferring their island in the middle of one of the salt ponds.

The swan’s pond has mostly dried up due to the drought…

Sharing the estuary by the sea wall, we were amazed to see eight snowy egrets feeding with the great egret, the swan and a flock of Canada geese!

9.2.16.4282 — 9.2.16 ~ swan and snowy egrets

9.2.16.4290 — 9.2.16 ~ great egret, snowy egrets and Canada goose

The calm before the storm… Hermine gave us mostly gale force winds and drizzle. Several branches and many leaves and twigs came off the trees, but no trees were uprooted in our vicinity. That was more than enough excitement for us!

9.2.164274 — 9.2.16 ~ swan and Canada geese

moving with change

7.31.16.wounded.gull — 7.31.16 ~ juvenile great black-backed gull ~ photo by Timothy Rodgers

Well, I’m sad to report that I haven’t seen my gull friend with the mangled foot since our encounter on July 10th… I have a strong feeling that he was indeed saying good-bye.

Sunday afternoon a different gull with an injured foot limped over to us to see what food we might offer him. He’s young so he hasn’t learned yet that most humans follow the rules and don’t feed the gulls. While I’m pretty sure our old friend was a herring gull, our new friend is much larger, perhaps a juvenile great black-backed gull.

Of course I was without camera, but I made sure to bring it with me yesterday. The sky was striking. But our new friend wasn’t there.

8.1.16.3828 — 8.1.16 ~ light and dark, late afternoon sun

8.1.16.3834 — 8.1.16 ~ laughing gull portrait

On Sunday the parking lot had been full of laughing gulls, but yesterday there was only one, and he perched near us, watching us eat. The laughing gulls don’t usually hang out on the white posts. It seems everyone is behaving differently these days!

8.1.16.3845 — 8.1.16 ~ snowy egret at Beach Pond

As we left for home I spotted this bird wading in the nearly dried up salt water pond. Connecticut is in a moderate drought. We have many great egrets but this one was smaller and I wondered if it was a young one. He was too far away to get a decent picture.

8.1.16.3856 — 8.1.16 ~ snowy egret at Beach Pond

Imagine my surprise when I enlarged a few of the pictures and noticed his yellow feet! Pretty sure this identifies him as a snowy egret, which is smaller than the great egret.

8.2.16.3860 — 8.1.16 ~ snowy egret at Beach Pond

8.1.16.3863 — 8.1.16 ~ semipalmated sandpiper

Not sure what kind of little shorebird this but he sure looked cute exploring the exposed pond bed. So many appearances in the flow of life…

8.1.16.3871 — 8.1.16 ~ semipalmated sandpiper

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
~ Alan Watts
(The Wisdom of Insecurity)

8.1.16.3885 — 8.1.16 ~ semipalmated sandpiper

appearances

4.11.15.4627 — 4.11.15 ~ Mystic, Connecticut

There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy.
~ Hippocrates
(The Mystic Vision: Daily Encounters with the Divine)

Last week Tim & I spotted this great egret fishing for its lunch on the west bank of the Mystic River.

Life flows on within you and without you.
~ George Harrison
♫ (Within You Without You) ♫

The appearance is ever-changing, but the beingness is ever-present.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Painting the Sidewalk with Water)

tropical downpours

calm before the storm ~ 7.3.14 ~ Groton, Connecticut

Our ancestors spoke to storms with magical words, prayed to them, cursed them, and danced for them, dancing to the very edge of what is alien and powerful — the cold power of ocean currents, chaotic winds beyond control and understanding. We may have lost the dances, but we carry with us a need to approach the power of the universe, if only to touch it and race away.
~ Kathleen Dean Moore
(Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World)

Hurricane Arthur is still to the south of us, and is expected to miss us and head northeast and out to sea. But we are experiencing tropical downpours here in Groton as the outer bands of rain brush by southeastern Connecticut. At 3:00 p.m. we already had 1.9 inches of rain and it is still coming down in torrents.

I often say that I love the excitement of storms, as long as they don’t get too exciting. This one fits the bill. We’ve been keeping a wary eye on this storm since it formed off the coast of Florida and are now relieved that it isn’t going to be too bad. Independence Day parades and fireworks have all been cancelled, but the rest of the weekend promises to be sunny and pleasant.

Will be busy this week getting ready for two big events next weekend, a baby shower for Larisa and a wedding for Tim’s cousin. Before those, a trip to IKEA with Janet. A night out at the Amherst Early Music Festival with Tim. This time we will see “Late Medieval sacred motets and secular love songs performed by award-winning women’s vocal quartet Anonymous 4.” A motet is “a short piece of sacred choral music, typically polyphonic and unaccompanied.” I can’t wait!

infused with wonder

5.18.13 ~ Mystic, Connecticut — 5.18.13 ~ Mystic River, Connecticut, great egret

Awareness is becoming acquainted with environment, no matter where one happens to be. Man does not suddenly become aware or infused with wonder; it is something we are born with.
~ Sigurd Olson
(Reflections from the North Country)