At Grande Prairie shopping center: A Great Blue Heron swallows a fish. (May 2005)When I started taking photographs in '04, I thought Great Blue Herons were rare. Of course, once I started looking for "the great" heron picture, I discovered it was hard NOT to find them -- go to anyplace with fish or frogs and you can find a great blue. This made me feel a bit silly, but I think I am one of the majority; so many of us in city/suburban life miss a lot of what goes on around us in the natural world.
In the Peoria area, you can see herons behind Grand Prairie Shopping Mall, from Dave's BBQ on the river, at the marina in Lacon, Il., in the pond by the Methodist church on highway 24 in Washington, at Eureka Park lake and at Banner Marsh. We fail to note them because when they are most visible, we are most inattentive. Birds in general, and water birds in particular, are active at the edges of the day, when night fades into the subtle light of dawn, or when the sun beds down for the night in mist, times when the working world is focused on the day's coming activities or on the evening news during the ride home.
And as in human society, activity in the natural world seems heightened at crossroads where one ecosystem meets another. In a physical sense the marsh is an edgeworld , where upland field and forest merge with the river, providing a rich array of cross habitats and creatures for every niche. If you can divert your attention from your normal concerns one morning and walk the edgeworld, you will meet neighbors you never knew you had.
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