Showing posts with label blight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blight. Show all posts

Sunday, March 6, 2011

EGRETS COMING HOME TO ROOST

About this time of the year, we enjoy an amazing drama near one or another of the bridges not far from my house. As the sun begins to set, egrets fly in to roost overnight in a clump of bushes growing on the bank of Bayou Lafourche. Last year the egrets chose a spot near a bridge further up the bayou. Why the birds chose another roost, and why such a large number of birds crowd into one rather small group of bushes, I have no idea.



The bushes in the photo above look pretty well full of roosting egrets, but, as you see in the photo below, more birds are arriving.



Up in the sky, even more birds are flying in. They keep coming until you think that there can't be one more perch available, and still they come.



By the time the egrets settle, the bushes are covered with white birds and a few pairs of blue egrets or herons. Since the blue birds are about the same size as the white birds, I know they are not Great Blue Herons.

I call the street in the background Visual Blight Boulevard. Big box chains, franchise restaurants and take-outs, service stations, giant concrete parking lots, and everything ugly lines the street on both sides. You could be in Anytown or Anycity for the sameness of the blight.

PS: I've redone the pictures so that a click on the pic will give you a somewhat larger view.