Daily Doodle # 18: Great Blue Heron
April 18, 2017
Great Blue Heron
Great blue heron at Green Lake
Great blue heron at Green Lake
In Praise of Idleness Drawings 87 – 95
December 31, 2016
Fuchsia
Trumpet flowers
Leaf
Calla lilies
Trees
Great blue heron
Face
Crow
Hands
The end
It was a rush to the finish, but I did complete this project by the end of the year as I had hoped. Time for new projects in 2017.
Happy New Year!
In Praise of Idleness Drawings 77 – 79
December 28, 2016
Seagull
Great blue heron
Duck
In Praise of Idleness Drawings 72 and 73
December 19, 2016
Canada goose
Great blue heron
In Praise of Idleness Drawings 32 – 34
November 26, 2016
Great blue heron
Frosty Mornings, the Gelid World
January 5, 2014
January morning at Green Lake
“How glorious the perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape.”
— Henry David Thoreau, from Winter: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 8, December 31, 1854
Path through the frosty grass, Green Lake
“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. We must make root, send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day. . . . Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always.”
— Henry David Thoreau, from Winter: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 8, December 29, 1856
I took Thoreau’s advice and walked around Green Lake on this frosty January morning. It was crisp and clear. I saw three great blue herons, a bald eagle perched in a tree, honking Canada geese, foraging ducks, and other Seattleites out to enjoy the fresh air.
Joggers at Green Lake
Fishing from the dock, bundled up, enjoying the natural world
One of three great blue herons (notice the frosty back feathers)
A Prairie of Queen Anne’s Lace at the Union Bay Natural Area
August 9, 2012
A trail through the Union Bay Natural Area
The wet prairie of the Union Bay Natural Area is studded with Queen Anne’s lace.
The Union Bay Natural Area is a calming oasis in the heart of urban Seattle. It’s adjacent to the Center for Urban Horticulture and the Elisabeth C. Miller Library. The looped trail takes you past a wet prairie studded with Queen Anne’s lace and cornflower-blue chicory. There’s a pond, the shoreline of Lake Washington, lily pads and cattails.
Meadow with Queen Anne’s lace
Looks like a trap for insects!
A fork in the trail
Looking up — a lacy silhouette
Cornflower-blue chicory lining the trail
A place for a peaceful ramble
Great blue heron on the pond
“For the animal shall not be measured by man. . . . In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the spendour and travail of the earth.”
— Henry Beston, The Outermost House
I read this quote in a wonderful book about animal encounters, Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters Black Bears to Bumble Bees by Charles Finn.
Cover illustration by Claire Emery, Wild Delicate Seconds
These 29 very short essays imitate the brevity of the actual encounters that Finn shares. His written descriptions are so vivid and alive and attentive, that they made me wonder which paints a better picture of the experience — words or photographs?
Bees on allium
Bee’s eye view of allium
For example, here is what Finn says about bumble bees: “I sit watching the bees, their inner-tube bodies overinflated, their legs like kinked eyelashes hanging down. The white-noise of their wings soothe me . . .”
Turtles sunning on a log amidst the lily pads at Green Lake
Or listen to this description of turtles: “They are toy tanks, frowning Buddhas on the boomed ends of logs, the original mobile home.”
Great blue heron with turtles, Green Lake
Of the heron, Finn says: “It looks like a hunched stone, an oval of waiting.”
Great blue heron, Green Lake
And: “The heron hunts with unswerving patience, its hula hoop eyes highlighter yellow, circular as hope. Its head is smooth, domed like the cockpit of a jet fighter, its long beak white on top, blue on the bottom, tapered like an immense sewing needle: the heron, nature’s idea of a spear-throwing machine.”
In these instances, I would vote for the power and poetry of the written word.
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