I went on a whale watch a couple weeks ago. It wasn't the kind of whale watch most people would call "successful" We saw some dolphins. There were some birds on the wharf. For me, it was just so darn good to be out on the water again I was happy.
And while we were waiting for the boat to go out, I was talking to Carlos about the night herons on the docks in Marina del Rey. I hadn't seen any since coming to Orange County, but I knew that we were well within the range... and as I was discussing them, as if to punctuate my point, one landed nearby.
I saw my first Black Crowned Night Heron in Albuquerque, where one often fished in the pond at the zoo. It stood out from the ducks and geese that visited the zoo, and I often looked for it and photographed it when I came to the zoo early for a Zoo-to-You trip. It was, for a while, until I saw Sandhill Cranes in the bosque, my very favorite bird.
When I came back to California, and especially once I started whale watching, I saw them more frequently. Black Crowned Night Herons... but also Green Herons. Oh, people were more thrilled to see the Great Blue Herons, but for me it was always the Night Herons and the Green Herons, lacking that long graceful profile that so many people think of when they think of herons. For me a they were a connection to a peaceful, quiet time... stoic symbols of the calm before the storm of activity which tends to come with education programing, whether at a zoo or on a whale watch boat. They are my anchors, a moment of pause.
Perhaps I will always love the herons like this, always look for them as I approach the coastal waters, the birds I can always identify even when I can't tell two year gulls apart, or identify a grebe, or discern between a sandpiper and a sanderling at a distance. I associate them always with a feeling of "home", of rightness, of familiarity. I am not a "bird person", but I do love the night herons.
And while I often find myself scanning the local skies for osprey, or other less usual birds, I feel happiest and most content when I see a night heron on a post or railing along the coastal waterways.
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