The Heron Grotto ~ or ~ Beauty in Drought

Published in

A Different Perspective

4 min readFeb 27, 2015

Turning left off the main road, the truck rattles and dips down the rutted dirt road while our two dogs smear the back windows with wet noses. Ahead, the ground and sky stretch expansively in a beautiful yet alien way.

The mood is light, as it always is when heading out to the lake—as it turns out, whether there is water in the lakebed or not.

Under a clump of young willows, about 60' in from the full-lake line, we park in the light shade. Yellow finches and black-capped chickadees flit among the willow leaves, short sharp chirps their melody. The dirt road continues on ahead, branching off in three directions across the empty lake bed.

This weekend (October 2014), there is no line of water visible at all from this spot; the lake bed on this side of the small, boomerang-shaped lake has been dry so long the ground underfoot is covered with low-growing plants mixed with patches of bone-dry sand and assorted rock.

As we walk along, the dogs run ahead, sniffing here, kicking up dust there, then racing up an exposed seam of volcanic rock that erupted eons ago and cooled into long lines of jumbled sharp black rock. Small birds around us dart and swoop.

A large, white wing catches my eye.

Then a long blue-grey glide.

Two dancing Vs play up ahead.

Why so many water birds, I wonder, when the water has been dried up for so long?

My stride slows, the dogs still running ahead at full tilt, my husband having long since mentally moved on, at least, binoculars suctioned over his eyes. They are pointed toward trucks parked in the distance with barely visible remote-controlled flying things buzzing about overhead.

My head cranes in the opposite direction, up toward the top of the trees that ring the outside of the old quarry, now a dry island rising up from a dry lake floor.

Herons circle around, chasing each other, hanging out in treetops.

(Can you see the two flying by?)

(They land in the trees — my small camera barely able to keep up with their speed — many takes only snap two seconds *after* the birds fly out of frame.)

I grow curious about the herons and/or egrets and change the course of my walk.

Bushwhacking through tangled shrubs, weaving past boulders, I eventually reach the lip of a small hill, then jump down, my eyes taking in the oasis spread out in front of me. Two white herons, or egrets, fly up over the treetops far above. One alights in an old oak while the other seems to disappear into the still-green alder on the far side of the sheltered cove.

The old quarry is a secret heron grotto.

I squat on my heels as the great blue heron I’d first seen out on the open lakebed flies into the quarry and lands on jagged boulders across the pond.

The dogs suddenly break through the brush, bringing their loud mayhem along as they both run straight for the water, slurping and splashing before dropping into a cool swim. My husband draws silently up behind.