Herons and more

I have seen my "spirit animal", the great blue heron, a great deal recently.

It makes me feel like my life is on the right track, even if so much else isn't.

Wildlife adventure before even putting in the boats

Besides a heron that didn't stay around for a photo, and a great egret, on Cane Bayou May 18 we saw a diamondback watersnake eating a catfish, eyes of several alligators, a gray snake in a tree, a cricket toe in the kayak smaller than the Mister's toe, a green tree frog, several red eared sliders and possibly some other turtles, a squirrel that didn't move (in a tree, mid-day.  We stayed away from that squirrel), a parent osprey feeding two chicks, and a dragonfly that ate a damselfly while I was explaining the difference to the other groups.  While out with the excellent Canoe and Trail Adventures (Canoeandtrail.com-- source of these photos) we also heard bronze frogs and pig frogs that we did not see.  Our guide told us we might see a Mississippi Kite soaring if we were lucky, but we certainly wouldn't be so lucky as to see one perched.  And in Louisiana we didn't see any, but we must be really lucky in our small town in Oklahoma, for there seem to be even more patrolling our skies this summer.

Cricket Frog. Not The Mister's foot.
Canoeandtrail.com photo

While I'm listing birds, I should add that on the recent trip to Kansas, besides the herons, we saw eastern kingbirds (lots of westerns here in Oklahoma, along with scissortailed flycatchers), large families of Canada geese with goslings of different ages, shrikes, hummingbirds, cardinals, blue jays, hawks (mostly red-tailed), cattle egrets, nighthawks, bluebirds, house finches, gold finches and oriels.

My shins (only) sunburned.  They are peeling now.

OSPREY BABIES!

Witty watching caption goes here.
Photo also by Canoe and Trail Adventures.

Symbolic Lucky Birds

About a month ago I took my Vertebrate Zoology class to Pittsburgh to the Zoo, Aquarium and National Aviary. It was a lucky trip on many genuinely lucky fronts (I have a great class, the aquarium man wanted to feed the sharks and let the students pet them, the aviary guide wanted to show-off her trained penguin for us) as well as several avoidance of misfortune fronts (a major bridge was closed but we had a map, traffic was horrible because of earlier accidents we weren't in, we were hours late returning home but nobody whined, in rained all day but it snowed a foot the next day).

The cranes at the aviary, a good luck symbol throughout Asia and now most happily nesting at the DMZ prompted thought on personal vs. widespread bird symbolism. I'll agree that bald eagles are majestic and stunning but there is nothing peaceful about a dumb cooing dove. I associate hawks with soaring rather than war. To me, cranes are more comic than lucky, but I do have my own list of lucky birds.

1) Great Blue Herons. A prominent personal symbol in my life (which may or may not have been foreseen in a spirit guide card reading) and part of my totem, herons will receive a whole post later.

2) Turkey Vultures. The first time I lived near a flock of turkey vultures at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, I found it a bit disquieting. Here we have two or three "Vulture Trees" with ten to fifty vultures perched in each. Many evenings I'll walk home with the whole bunch circling above on the thermals. Over time, they've become a symbol of home and their recent return was a much more pronounced indicator of spring than the robins or the cardinals. Lucky vultures!

3) Jayhawks. For obvious reasons. Rock chalk! Go KU!