This is a series of sixteen photos of a blue heron landing in the shallow waters of the Port of Gold Beach, at low tide. (The second photo is a bit blurry. I must have shaken the camera. Sorry. But it’s part of the sequence as the heron slows for its landing.)

From the second through the  sixth photos the bird reminds me of a plane trying to land in the short space of the deck of an aircraft carrier. After that, the photos remind me of a ballet dancer until the heron settles down, on one foot, in the final frame.

As big as these birds appear to be, it’s only because of their wings. This shot reveals how skinny their bodies really are.

This begins the ballet as the heron adjusts itself.

Now on one foot, the heron is unmindful of the weeds now wrapped around its feet.

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.