A few days ago I went for a drive along the Rogue River. First I went up the north bank to Libby Pond. I was hoping to find ospreys because my friend, Sammi Craig, had been up there with her camera, a week or two ago, and she said she saw at least one osprey diving into the pond for fish. I don’t have that kind of luck because I’ve gone up there, just about every other day, since she told me and I only saw one osprey, once, and it wasn’t pulling fish out of the pond.

There were none there this day, either.

So, I drove up to the one-lane bridge, at Lobster Creek, and crossed over the Rogue, and went down to the boat launch ramp at the Lobster Creek Campground. This is another place I’ve been told by my friends, Laurie and Christine Mack, they’d seen ospreys diving for fish.

There were zero ospreys. But there were some blue herons. Three, to be exact.

I’m still learning the limitations of my camera, my photography ability, and each of my five lenses. So I still take a lot of photos that are, to put it mildly, bombs. And I took a lot of those, that day. (In one of his books on photography, Scott Kelbey wrote that a photographer is lucky to get one good photo in two hundred and fifty shots he or she takes. So, who am I to be complaining?)

But I do get lucky.

I’d already taken a bunch of photos (no keepers) when all three of the blue herons decided to disappear. That meant it was time for me to go home and I was walking back up the ramp toward my car when I was greeted by a family that had come to picnic, swim, and fish from the gravel bar at the launch ramp. It was a mom and dad, two kids (boy and girl), and two wiener dogs.

The girl, about eight or ten-years-old, ran down the ramp and I heard her yell, “Look, a beautiful blue heron.”

I turned around and one of the herons had returned. So I went back down the ramp and slowly crossed the gravel, taking photos as I went, and hoping the heron would take flight because they’re most beautiful when their wings are spread.

I got as close as I dared and it stood in the river doing nothing for quite a while and I was about to give up when…

Well, you can see the photos below.

I was heading into the magazine, early in the morning, but made a side trip to the Port of Gold Beach, here in Oregon. The air was still to the water in the port was almost unrippled and there was a great egret stalking its breakfast in the shallow water. I saw an opportunity to get some reflected photos, but I didn’t realize how good they might be. Here’s what I shot.

I don’t have any great affection for Western Seagulls. I think it’s because there are so many of them and they’re here year-round, so I just don’t see them anymore.

However, a friend pointed out a Western Seagull nest at the launch ramp at the Port of Gold Beach. No matter how you feel about seagulls, babies are babies and almost universally cute. So, I’m now photographing them.

Here’s the nest, atop some pilings, and I think that may be Mom and Dad watching over them.

I wondered why the one here was peering into the other side of the nest.

He or she was about to pay its other sibling a visit.

Maybe it was just trying to get away from the sibling that was crowding it with its wings. Whatever its intentions, if it falls, it’s about 15 feet to the floating dock and the water below, and these guys can’t fly, yet.