Friday, December 12, 2008

Drying out


Sunshine (at least a bit of it), at last! We've survived two solid days of clouds, rain (some of it torrential last night), and cold. Today it's windy and partly cloudy with breaks of sun but, most importantly, it has stopped raining.

Yesterday afternoon, driving back to work in the rain after a meeting out in the country, I watched a Great Blue Heron flying over the suburban sprawl. This lonely bird, battling the cold, the rain, and a light headwind, was heading back to its roost for the evening--a gray wraith against a gray sky on a gray and dreary day. I felt so sorry for this bird (and all the other animals that have no choice but to bear the cold, inclement weather with wet fut and wet feathers). I thought about how difficult it must be to find something to eat when the bird needed food the most, yet the streams were running high and the prey were obscured by mud and silt.

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