Blue Heron Haikus

4 April 2013

Blue wings flap slowly,
great bird shadows the marsh:
spring shyly hungers.

When, if yesterday,
the blue heron returned, will 
frogs begin to sing? 

Notes

I took this picture in BC, while walking on a beach near Montague Harbour, Galiano Island, so this bird isn't an east coast Great Blue Heron. Still, it will do for illustrative purposes.

Thanks are due Marike, who noticed the first returned heron yesterday as we were walking by the marsh. She remarked how quiet and shy the birds are in the spring: "Spring is the season for mating and shyness." We had been recalling and laughing at how noisy the herons can be, particularly in the fall, when they scold us with their awful voices--GRAAAA AACK!--for stepping out of the house. But they are silent in the spring as they coast over ponds and marshes, looking for peepers and other prey. Often, too, they turn their backs to us, as if, when they cannot see us, we cannot see them. We're waiting still, and listening, for the first sign of the frogs.