by Jan Fielden

I looked out the bay window in the front and saw a beautiful sight last week. Across the lake, close to the pond dam, in a tree sat a group of Egrets all aligned as if they were in a theatre with stadium seating. They were so evenly spaced as if someone had told them, “no you need to scoot down a little bit so everyone else will have enough space”. The wind was blowing a little bit and I could see the limbs moving, but the birds sat still.

They ranged from the top of the tree to almost the bottom. The rows got a little longer as they moved down from the top. It was a stark contrast in the dark green of the trees and the white birds resting on them. They must have sat on that tree for forty minutes at least. I didn’t watch the whole time but after a while whenever I would walk through the room, I would look over there and they were still right there.

When they finally took off it was almost an orchestrated movement. The top row, one at a time, and then the next row the same all the way to the bottom. I have watched them in the pastures and they don’t really do things like that. They will fly in and chase the grasshoppers and any other kind of bug they can find but it isn’t so precise. No matter what, it was a beautiful sight to behold on the Red Oak Ranch!