Another look from a drift log - three herons

And then, I found another drift log by the Kaw River to sit on. It was the one the three turtles had been resting on just the other day. I could see about forty feet of smooth, sun-whitened wood, resting on the rocks, but I couldn’t tell how much of the log extended down beneath the  muddy river. I straddled the log as if I might ride it on down into the water.

A heron stood on a rocky point catching the spill that comes through the north unit of the Bowersock hydropower plant. The heron was perhaps seventy-five yards away from me, standing motionless on the other side of a small cove of the river. It gave no sign that it noticed me.

I think of herons standing stoically, just watching the world as it turns – quite imperceptibly from I was sitting. From my log, I watched the heron watching. And then, suddenly, it stabbed its bill into the water and came up with a flash of wriggling silver. So much for stoicism.

For me to imagine what herons think is mostly about what I think. And what I want to think is that things make sense. That there’s a reason among the rhymes. I can perceive patterns all around me, but what do they mean?

For instance, over some time I’ve noticed that herons seem to like to play a kind of game – I might call it ‘King of the river.’ The game tends to be played in a triangular pattern.  It’s probably is just a territorial thing, but from my perspective the game seems nearly pointless – a game played out of idleness.

As I watched, a heron flew in from somewhere across the way and landed near the one that had caught the fish some minutes ago. That one flew up and over to where another heron was standing near the low island in the middle of the river, bumping that one off. Then that heron flew off somewhere. To some other edge of the river.

The herons settle for a while, but, if I sit long enough, eventually a heron will be flying in to take the spot just across from where I am sitting.

Now I can’t tell which heron is which and one edge of the river doesn’t seem significantly different from another to me. But then I don’t think like a heron. And then, maybe this flying around is indeed all just some kind of a game. Something to do while waiting for something to happen.

And then I felt something. It was almost imperceptible. It felt as if the log I was sitting on had moved. A shudder. I wondered if I was imagining it. Maybe it was I that had moved. Shifted. The river was flowing with only a moderate current and the log seemed well anchored on the large limestone rocks of the levee. But something must have moved. I felt something. Or maybe I just imagined it.

I picked up a light stick lying among the rocks nearby and balanced it across the log. Perhaps with this sensitive instrument, my eyes might see the movement that I thought I felt. If it happened again. The light breeze moved the light stick. So much for that idea. I wasn’t  doing much more than playing my own game.

I looked up to see if the herons were still standing where I had seen them last. Time is not quite measurable when you’re just sitting on a log by a moving river. The river flows. Always changing and yet still the same. Heraclitus said that. I’m just repeating it in my own way.

The heron across the small cove waded slowly along the near edge of the point. It was close enough that I could see a dark band across its gray head. And then the heron waded back. It seemed pointless to ask if there was a point to all of this.

And then the log underneath me moved again. Well, maybe it moved. How could I tell? I watched the log. I looked down its length to where the log extended down into the moving water. It would have to take something pretty big bumping into the end of the log for me to feel it. And then I felt the log shudder again.

Do herons expect two plus two to equal four? Do they think that there a cause for every effect? And then, why should I care if the log moved or didn’t move under me?  Not that I cared very much. As I have said, the movement was nearly imperceptible. But still, I sort of wanted an answer.  A reason among the randomness.

Wondering about things is a very human game to play.

I looked up to see if the herons were about to trade places again.

As if it mattered.

**

 Photos of the Kaw River for comparison:

May 9 - The Kaw River flowing at about 46,000 cubic feet/second.

In the photo at the top, taken a few weeks earlier, about 7,000 cfs.

The Kaw - same river - running 10 feet higher.

This drift log and the one nearby that I was sitting on in this story are long gone.
 
The herons stood watching on that point just across the way.