The heron fixed me with a wary, if calm eye. I was so close I could see the yellow of its irises as it stood motionless on a wooden fence post at the Waterworks Reserve.
A lone heron, a lone walker. A meeting of minds. The heron and I appeared to be on the same path to self-discovery. I was attuned to a glorious summer’s day, finding a little “me time” away from the family. The white-faced heron seemed to have the same idea; coolly taking in the view, the goings on all about it, without a thought to the daily needs of existence, finding a feed.
As I passed, the heron swung its giant, dagger beak about it, pointing it in the direction of a hazy kunanyi/Mt Wellington towering above the reserve.
I paused again, contemplating the heron, the motive for it being there. Herons – or blue cranes as they are called in Tasmania, in homage to their largely blue-grey plumage – are only seen in the reserve in spring when they invade the neighbouring suburbs to hunt skinks emerging from hibernation at the end of winter.
Then I see them everywhere, before they vanish, travelling to breeding areas. At the same time long plumes grow to adorn their heads. These grey breeding feathers enhance a plumage which also features a wash of magenta on their breasts. And there is, of course, the white face patch that speaks their name across the entire Australian continent and neighbouring islands of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.
It is impossible I’m told to tell male and female white-faced heron apart. I only know that the bird I see in the Waterworks Reserve has probably bred this season.
Just a day previously I had driven south of Lauderdale, across the salt marshes on the road to the South Arm, and seen herons wading in shallow waters there, in a habitat much more suited to them. The wetland area is also suitable for breeding, with scattered trees a short flight away that can hold heron nests constructed of sticks.
Had this bird sent his or her fledglings on their way already to carve their own futures? Was it now a heron on an adventure of its own, taking in the sights and sounds of a location far from its natural home, in step with me in the way I wander from suburbia a few times a week for a spiritual experience not mired in concrete and glass?
“Birds of a feather” I whisper to myself but what would a white-faced heron make of such human musings? Behind that mad yellow eye, beyond the tip of that fearsome beak, I like to think a lone heron and a lone human, basking in the warmth of a summer’s afternoon, speak the same language, a language without words.