“The Great Blue Heron is one of my favorite birds in spite of the retriever’s stubborn opposition to having it anywhere on the grounds. It is huge of course and undoubtedly regal. Also silly when it poses with wings out to dry or sleeps stretched out on its belly in the afternoon shade. It is also a rarity. Though there is a good-sized rookery just miles away, our sightings are limited to one or two of these great birds at a time. We appreciate them — even if that opinion is not shared by the larger hairy four-legged member of the family.”

Quoting one of my favorite authors (me), this was part of a column published back on June 24, 2011.

I believe the rookery remains deserted and that particular retriever is no longer with me. Fortunately, I do see the heron on those reasonably rare but very special occasions. It no longer has to fly in to sit around on shore to be noticed for my eye can identify the quickest motion. I know that bird.

Except for those jays that nested just beyond my window so I could photograph happily day after day from the first sitting until they disappeared, I suspect I have more pictures of the heron than any other bird.

Are any other birds as regal in appearance? White-tipped head, black stripe from eyeball back. Let me turn to an authority who has better use of descriptive words than I, my favorite “Birds of America.”

“Forehead and top of head, white; sides of crown and crest, black; neck, pale gray, marked on throat with white, rusty and black streaks; chin and cheeks, white; upper parts, slaty-blue; shoulders, grayer; tail, slaty-blue; inner wing quills, slaty-blue shading into black primaries; plumes of lower neck and breast, gray; abdomen, black with white and rufous streaking; under tail-coverts, white; bill, yellow with dusky ridge; legs and feet, dusky, soles yellow; bare space around eye, greenish and blue; iris, chrome yellow.”

Now you know.

It’s big and that helps to see it of course but it can also pose in what I find to be the strangest positions. Best perhaps, it isn’t afraid of me (or that noisy dog) and fearlessly poses on the nearest island, if not on land, just beyond my windows. Who wouldn’t grab a camera so often?

The Great Blue spends his leisure fishing, a pastime that, I’m sure, would appeal to many. As it would be for a man on shore or in a boat, the trick is to remain motionless. I don’t think of fish as among the brightest of beings but they can easily escape a careless angler.

“Much of the fishing the Heron does without stirring from the position he takes in shallow water among reeds or near the shore. Motionless as a statue he stands, his long neck doubled into a flattened S and his keen eyes searching the water nearby.

As a frog or fish approaches he holds his rigid position until the creature comes within striking range, and the Heron knows what that is to a small fraction of an inch. Then suddenly the curved neck straightens out and simultaneously the long, rapier-like bill shoots downward with a stroke which is quicker than the eye can follow and seldom misses its mark. In a second the fish or frog has disappeared, and the fisherman has resumed his statuesque pose. Again, the great bird may be seen stalking slowly though shallow water, lifting each foot above the surface, and sliding it into the water again so gently as to cause hardly a ripple; and woe to the crawfish or salamander that does not observe that approach.”

“Birds of America” was copyrighted in 1917 and again in 1936.

I’m pleased to know some things have changed for the better for the same article also includes this: “The Great Blue Heron is the largest of the truly American herons, and is known as a stately, dignified, and interesting bird by those who have observed it in other ways than over the sights of a shotgun or rifle. This pursuit is legalized in certain regions where the bird is believed to be even more destructive to the spawn and young of game fish than to its other prey of frogs, crawfish, small snakes, salamanders and various water creatures which are more harmful than useful, not to mention grasshoppers and meadow mice. Under these conditions it becomes difficult to approach one of the alert and far-sighted birds even to within field-glass range.”

I have been able to watch this scene play out on many occasions. I never tire of it and am never (well . . . hardly ever) in too much of a hurry to stop and linger, binoculars facing the water.

It’s part of the gift I call life.

Susan Crossett has lived outside Cassadaga for more than 20 years. A lifetime of writing led to these columns as well as two novels. Her Reason for Being was published in 2008 with Love in Three Acts following in 2014. Both novels are now available at Lakewood’s Off the Beaten Path bookstore. Information on all the Musings, her books and the author may be found at Susancrossett.com.