Bartlett Park at Dusk

More rain means more water for Bartlett Park, Huntington Beach. It looked fairly dark and foreboding in the evening light, but the local wildlife did not seem to care. The ducks show no sign of leaving their new home, and a blue heron still hoped for an evening's snack.

A large raptor watched the proceedings from a tree down in the valley. I think it was a white-tailed kite, but it was too dark to see for sure, and I was not able to get a good picture. Hummingbirds and sparrows were also plentiful.

Library Herons, or why I should ALWAYS carry my camera, even when it isn't practical

So, today it was not practical to carry the camera full time the way I usually do. It just wasn't.

So I didn't.

And when I stopped by the library, there was a young heron, standing in the edging, looking a bit dazed, in perfect photo position--peering around a cactus, to be precise.

Later, he was over standing on someone's wall, trying to figure out whether or not he could reach the roof. Again, a beautiful photo op, and I had no camera!

Apparently, they're still figuring out how to fly, so they pretty regularly land in front yards or in library edgings.

Oh--and the woman who had complained about all the noise the nestlings were making? It was her yard, and she was delightedly calling her husband out to look.

I knew she was protesting too much!

And I'm simply going to have to figure out how to carry my camera tomorrow.

I won't be near those herons, but something else might happen. You never know.