Wild, Wild Life

Another close encounter of the avian kind and book news!

I am careening toward a book manuscript deadline. I am white knuckling the steering wheel on one of those twisty animated canyon roads in a Roadrunner cartoon and up ahead a truck just dumped a bunch of nails across an oil slick about to burst into flames in 3…2… At this stage of the process it is three parts harrowing, one part exciting, and eighteen parts a lot of work. I know the math doesn’t work out I AM AN ARTS PERSON! The truth is all work is work. That’s why I loved, the Peter Jackson Beatles’ documentary, Get Back, so much. Four guys (and Billy Preston) in a studio with instruments grinding out music—getting bored, getting tired, feeling frustrated, having fun, goofing around, literally laboring over take after take after take. I know we tend to romanticize creative work because it, like, comes from our SOULS! Meanwhile AI smirks, “That’s adorable.” But the truth is there is just as much sweat equity in painting or performing as there is in arguing a court case or teaching ninth grade science. And in the latter the stakes are way higher! You tank your stand-up set and have a big sad for a while. You mess up some kid’s science education and possibly doom the rest of civilization. Right? Isn’t that what that Oppenheimer movie is about?

All of this is to say that while I trek to summit Mount Bookervest in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be keeping things here a bit shorter and likely a little more photo-centric. I have some new pieces in mind that simply require more time and bandwidth AND PARTS OF MY SOUL than I can give right now, okay?

I’ve talked about this project a little here and there in the last few months and will have more to say as things move out of the lab and onto the assembly line where anything can happen because life is not an Aaron Sorkin script. Just a week ago we learned that our government has been partying with E.T.s and ALFs for decades and probably fleecing them for campaign donations, too. What a time to be alive!

So this week I’m leaving you with a Lens Zen dispatch that unexpectedly doubles as a coda to my wild life piece from last week.  

A few times a week I walk on a bike path that winds through a patch of conservation land. It’s a beautiful marshy area marked by gravel trails and boardwalks. Near the entrance to the area there is a greasy inlet fed by a couple of storm drains as well as the nearby river, which flows through the entire ecosystem. It’s a hopping spot for birds: ducks, geese, hawks, cardinals, blue jays, red-winged blackbirds, and herons. Who’s stalking who, girls?

I noticed a heron on the other side of the inlet as I rounded that part of the trail the other morning. She was nestled underneath a stand of swamp brush and small trees. She was hunched down, her shoulders pulled up around her ears as if to say, “Minga, I haven’t even had my coffee yet.” Same, heron. Same.

She was too far away to photograph cleanly. I thought, maybe I can get a shot if I go around to the other side. I did. I could not-at first. The brush was too high and too thick. But as I was peering over and around, trying to will the trees to part with my mind, she began to slink out of her sitting spot. She methodically crept along the shoreline, coming into perfect view. I watched her pause to spear her breakfast-gone and gulped with a sigh. I squeezed off a few photos, feeling grateful that she had moved into my sight line. She continued making her way toward where I had been standing on the other side. That section of the trail was part boardwalk with sturdy railings. It also had fewer patches of trees and brush—no mind control required! I bet I could get a really nice clean shot if I went back over there.

I walked over with my phone out and the zoom engaged. Herons are notoriously skittish. Or maybe they are the Greta Garbos of birds who are, like, so not interested in whatever it is you think you’re doing skulking around like that and PS howdareyou? If these birds think you are breathing too loud at 20 feet away they will take off before your next exhale.

I peered over the railing expecting to spot the heron’s snowy head below me, but she was gone. Aw, where did you go? I wondered out loud. And then I looked up and saw her perched on the railing not more than 4 feet in front of me.

If she suddenly turned and pecked my eyes out it would have been totally worth it. AND maybe Jenna Ortega would play me in the movie!!! ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

I stopped walking. I stopped breathing. I stopped all molecular movement in my body. Had I suddenly wandered into a David Lynch dream sequence? If the heron started talking telepathically to me, I would not have even blinked. I raised my phone and snapped as fast as I could knowing if I were lucky I would have 30 seconds, maybe. She granted me an audience for probably close to a minute. That’s enough, she seemed to say, and PS you’re welcome. Crouching, she readied for launch, and then her wings yawned and she lifted off, up, and out of sight, leaving me behind.