North Fork and a Heron

Strasburg Town Park

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I take pictures of the river rather frequently. It has many moods, and I like to see them. It makes delightful sounds too; I’m sorry you can’t hear them.

This summer, the water level was low in both forks of the Shenandoah, and then we had a couple of big storms that brought the river out of its banks. Now it is back to a normal level and there are signs of autumn

This welcome sign was left dirty by recent flooding of the North Fork. As I took a picture of it with my cell phone, I saw a movement and realized there was a heron taking off.

Wild Bird Wednesday / Water H2O

Most of the pictures I’ve taken of great blue herons are ones where they are stalking fish. They stand very still and stare at the water, often not noticing a passer-by. Sometimes I glimpse a heron flying by, but unless I have a camera turned on and ready, I miss the chance to get a photo of this magnificent bird in flight.

My cellphone pictures are lacking detail, and cropping them only helped a little. This last image is a fantasy version, with two herons added by pasting Picsart stickers onto my image. I also added a sticker that has the app name so that this does not get mistaken for a real photo. Lately I’ve seen many fake photos passed off as real ones on social media, and that’s disturbing.