The Calm of Mid-day

...the wonderful thought that everyplace that you've gone and everything that you've experienced and felt with your heart remains within you flowing through your veins, modifying the signals of your nerves and altering your brain to continue to seek out and add more wonder to what you've experienced.

osprey

It is a quiet day, warm and sunny with a soft wind...and it is not a light wind, but a "soft" wind.  The animal life is somewhat still.  The osprey are out and obvious, but osprey do not have much leaning toward seclusion.  I expect more willets than I see, but I figure them to be back away in the spartina where they are hard to spot.  This trip was timed for a high tide that comes at mid-day, not the best time for wildlife watching.

black bellied plover

One black bellied plover stands out among the birds that I do see, until I spot a shiny yellow fishing lure just beyond the second bridge.  Then, I realize that it has a bird attached to it...in fact, it is not a fishing lure at all, but the pale yellow pate of a yellow crowned night heron.  It is the first one that I've seen this season.

yellow crowned night heron

Just past the stone bridge I start picking up marsh wren calls with fair frequency.  I watch for nests, but with the cattails knee to waist high, there are none.  Until I spot one in the phragmites.  It is a nest from last year however, well weathered but also firmly built and located.  It had to be to last a winter.

with fish (deceased)

With the high tide I paddle into the jungle without only one complaint, a rather loud one, from a resident hawk.

I return the way I came. I spot a second yellow crowned night heron, two more plover and a flying flock of seven glossy ibises.  Things were picking up as the tide began to fall.