Grace

 

Graceful Takeoff at Metson Lake

I stopped at Metson Lake to check out a great blue heron standing on the partly submerged branches left over from the big cypress that fell in the lake a couple of years ago. The heron was just hanging out, apparently neither hunting nor grooming. I wandered over to the cattail patches to see if any hummingbirds would show up to gather the cattails' downy seeds. A blue-eyed darner dragonfly buzzed very close to my face, paused for a moment to give me the once-over, then flew back over the lake. As I watched it fly away I noticed the heron in the background doing an about-face. Figuring it was about to take off, I pointed my camera just in time.

There is such grace in the heron's movements as it generates lift with its powerful wings, and it's another kind of grace -- a kind I'm grateful to experience every day -- to be able to witness such things.

This morning was warmer and sunnier than yesterday, and I wasn't sure if this monarch butterfly that was fluttering around the edge of North Lake was ever going to land. It finally chose an interesting perch to rest on, a big round nasturtium leaf.

I heard some new birdsong in the area and tried to zero in on it, when this Wilson's warbler flew out of a dense thicket to sing from a new perch.

The tidal rock that hosted all the surfbirds yesterday is usually empty, but today it was being colonized by pink-legged Western gulls.

A few more brown pelicans have been hanging out at Seal Rocks lately. Their numbers were a lot larger recently, but then they absconded to who-knows-where, leaving the rocks to barely a handful of cormorants and gulls.

Pelicans Over Ocean Beach

Soaring Above the Cliff House

Meanwhile, a pretty good-sized group of willets was foraging down on the beach.

They would chase the receding waves to probe for mole crabs, then become chased by the next incoming waves.

On The Run

I saw a couple of people running their off-leash dogs toward the birds and guessed what was going to happen next. The dogs chased off the willets, who flew far out of range to the south.

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