Walking in June: Of Habits and Herons

OK, I fully admit I keep mixing up my cranes and my herons and had to do an online search to make sure this is indeed a heron. The thing is, I see both on walks around Olympia. How lucky is that! 

I took this picture on one of the walks that's a habit: a Saturday walk to the farmers' market and downtown with my sweetheart. This heron stood in the water not far from the path that wraps around the south end of Budd Bay, in the little bit bordered by East Bay Road and Olympia Avenue.

When we first moved in and began following this route, I often looked up the tide tables. I'd propose a walk at a time that would give us high tide, not the mud flats of low tide. We would look for seals swimming in the bay, look up at birds flying overhead, admire the smooth or choppy sparkling waters.

This timing didn't always work, however, and we found ourselves on some walks when we'd say, "Oh, the mud is up!" Over time, thanks to making a habit of walking downtown at varying times on Saturdays, we realized that when the mud is up (meaning of course that the tide is low) we see far more birds. 

Shore birds and crows pick at the mud for morsels they must consider (or hope) to be edible. Seagulls swoop in to grab a mussel and drop it on the sidewalk to break the shell open. Our Canadian visitors, the geese, waddle along or sail through the waters, low though they are, alongside their cousins the ducks and buffleheads. We sometimes spot multiple herons, spaced out along the shoreline so each has its fishing spot as it steps slowly through the water, beak poised to stab. In recent weeks we've been seeing purple martins at the nesting boxes on the old pier supports that project from the water, and on one memorable day we saw a kingfisher flash past. Our walking habit enables us to experience the same places at different times and seasons and thus know them better.

When we get to the farmers' market we sometimes go past, to sit at the marina and watch the boats, or along Capitol Avenue to get coffee or stop at the bookstore. One of the delights this time of year is a tree full of nesting herons, a rookery. They return to this tree every year; you might even say they have a habit of coming here.

The tree stands right on Capitol across from a sandwich shop, not away from humans in a protected refuge. Their clattering calls fill the tree with noise and their broad wings carry them through the sky, only an occasional beat of the wings needed to continue their soaring.

Related Reading

• Walking in May: Of Downtowns and Dancing
• Walking in April: Of Multimodal Miles and Museums
• Walking in March: Of Woods and Work 
• Walking in February: Of Woods and Water 
• Walking in January: Of Gloves and Poetry