Words + Images

I kept wanting it to take flight, to see its wings fill with light, but it did not want to fly apparently, no matter how many times it lifted its wings. I chanced upon the egret in my usual way, stepping to the edge of a structure and peering over to see what I might see, and there so still in the grass it stood …

… before taking those high-legged steps into the water …

… and then back out again onto land, feathers ruffled but still not taking flight. An impasse. Finally under the heat of the intense noonday sun I moved on suspecting that with my back now turned the egret’s wings spread and silently beat the air as it rose upward and upward, away.

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/san_pablo_bay/