One day before the pandemic, I was sitting in my TV room and looking out at one of my bird feeding stations to see who had stopped by for lunch. No one was there. That seemed strange, because birds had been flitting back and forth all morning. Suddenly they were gone.
Looking through a cherry tree just beginning to leaf out, I spotted a big gray shadow atop my fence. I looked again and couldn’t believe it. A heron was perched as still as a statue less than 20 feet from me. Maybe the big bird had cautioned the smaller ones to stay away.
“What good fortune,” I thought, “that I happened to sit down, look outside, and see this beautiful bird visit my yard. What a gift!”
Then it occurred to me. The heron’s body was still, but his senses were on alert and he was looking right into my goldfish pond.
“What a gift,” the heron probably thought. “A person at this house has set out a smorgasbord of beautiful fish for me to enjoy.”
And that’s why that heron was so focused on the pond. When I dashed outside to check, I saw that he’d eaten every one of my fish!
The heron was doing what Nature requires him to do to feed himself and maybe some youngsters back at the nest. He just happened to discover my pretty pond and all the tasty fish it held. He was lucky to find such a rich bounty and I was lucky I got to see him. He took my fish and gave me a story—and an explanation of what happened to my fish.
Carol Harker