Stalking the Great Blue Heron

It was one of those seasons of the spirit when the burdens of living threaten to lay waste its blessings. The heat had been relentless ever since the beginning ofJuly, and the drought that seared most of the nation's farm and ranchland had also afflicted us in the Appalachian hill region ofsoutheastern Ohio. The ill effects could be seen in the parched countryside and felt along our taut nerves. People cannot long remain buoyant when patience ebbs and the principal daily pursuit becomes a negative one—the avoidance of friction with others of one's kind. It was a summer of discontent. In an effort to improve my own inner weather I drove down to the river around 7:00 a.m., as I had done for the last several mornings. The Hocking, which takes its name from a Delaware Indian word, is a small river whose headwaters trickle in the hills not far below Columbus. From there it flows southeastward until it joins the broad Ohio in the little town of Hockingport on the West Virginia border. I intercepted it on the south side of Athens. Up until recently, when I moved a few miles away, it was my custom to walk daily along the bank of this river. Twenty years ago the channel was widened to prevent the flooding that had formerly bedeviled the valley almost 46 every spring, and since then the north side of the river has been enhanced for public enjoyment by the planting of trees and the construction of a bikepath. The area is much used, especially in warm weather when university students sun bathe on the mowed bank and many peoplejog and bicycle on the ribbon of asphalt. Preferring to have the place more to myself and being an early riser, I often went first thing in the morning. I particularly liked those mornings in late summer or early fall when the fog hung heavy in the air. The atmosphere would sometimes be so thick and dark that I could see only a few yards in front of me, except for the place where the river is crossed by a bridge. Its street lights, which penetrate the dense fog for a considerable distance with a hazy yellow glow, were like a magnet to my eyes. Wasn't Oscar Wilde the wit who said nature imitates art? In any event the point of that apparent paradox has repeatedly impressed itself upon me, for as I approached the bridge on those solitary mornings I always felt as though I were walking into one of Whistler's paintings of the Thames. On this particular morning, however, as on the previous ones, there was no fog since the temperature probably had not gone down below sixty-eight or seventy degrees during the night. The pale yellow sun had begun another day's burning in the pale blue sky above a hill across the river from where I stood. At first, squinting in the bright light, I simply gazed this way and that, up and down the river. Then I began to walk east. I knew what I was looking for: a great blue heron. My original encounters with this bird the previous August were unforgettable . The first occurred while I was walking along the bikepath in the quiet semi-darkness of a foggy morning. Suddenly I heard a disturbance in the air behind me, and within the space of a second or two I moved from bewilderment to the certain knowledge that it was the sound of beating wings bearing down furiously upon me. I froze in my tracks and tucked my head into my shoulders as I turned round to the left. Just as I did so there emerged from the fog not more than ten or twelve feet away two long-necked, large-winged birds. They whirred past me in perfect synchronization, one a little ahead of the other, and flew over the bank to the river where in a ragged open patch of air I saw them veer downstream before being quickly swallowed again by the fog. I gasped at the sight. Never before had I been privy to such a dramatic demonstration...