Blue Heron in L.A. an Unlikely Love Story

Today, while walking my dog Frankie, I saw what looked like a crane- but actually was a blue heron fly over my canyon. Over my dusty, dry, litter and graffiti covered canyon. A heron. It’s wings spanning the sky; it’s neck gracing the air around it. I’ve never seen one (or anything like it) near my house before, but there it was landing gracefully in a ratty, half-dead shrub on my fire road (AKA teen sex and drunken disorder road).

            “What is a HERON doing here?”

Was he drawn to the area by the symphonic patter of M-80s constantly going off in tall, dry grass?  Was he searching for the large pile of VCRs that someone dumped off the side of Glenalbyn? Maybe he was feeling romantic and the used condoms on the side of the road were beckoning.

My guess is he was loving life down at the LA River, the traffic and construction not withstanding, spending his days fishing for whatever the river gods sent his way, and his nights cozily sharing his nest with a like minded homeless couple.  When suddenly he caught wind (literally) of a Groupon for one-dollar Zumba classes and headed to York to see what all the fuss was about. 

Or maybe, like so many others in LA, this heron suffers from glaucoma, and was looking for the marijuana dispensary on Fig. Poor eyesight would explain why he landed in my dead shrub.

In any case, I felt like I do whenever I see the wildlife of Los Angeles- awed, wistful and tentatively boastful. Here is this amazing creature living among us! Sure the national parks have the lion’s share of lions. But it’s easy to have wild things in wild places.  A greater challenge is to be wild and free in the middle of the city. Yet here is this heron, wading through our refuse, making small talk with our blight. Is he cool with that? Are we doing right by him? Am I appreciating him enough to make up for all the BS he has to put up with?

Yet maybe, like so many others in LA, this heron is just taking it all in stride. The trash, the noise, the disregard for natural spaces, it’s nothing compared with what he’s getting: the flowers, the sunshine, the unparalleled Mexican food.  There is something in the air that keeps him here, some magic between the smog molecules that makes all the crap he puts up with worth every second.

Frankie’s Footnote

Heron? What’s a heron? I didn’t see a heron. I saw a grey squirrel running up a tree! So I can’t tell you about herons or whatever, but I can tell you that the Chihuahua down the street has been eating strawberry wafer cookies and the coyotes have been drinking out of someone’s pool.  Also, and I don’t say this to just anyone, but I really, really like you! Like - really like. A LOT. I’ve never been happier to meet someone in my entire life! I am using all my will power to not bury my nose in your butt right now.