Yesterday, before I got going for the day I noticed a few visitors down by the water...a lovely Great Egret aka Great White Egret aka Great White Heron. Apparently this species of egret needs a few aliases, hmm makes you wonder why?! ;)
There were actually 3 Great Egrets just off of our pier yesterday, but I only got close enough to one of them to snap a few pictures. I kept my distance, but eventually it took off with one of the other egrets and down the creek it went.
I just love where I live and all that it has to offer, I consider myself more than a little lucky and oh so fortunate!
To be able to look out my back door and see such beauty, and learn something new...like what color a Great Egret's Lores are during mating season...wow, how cool is that?!
Of course I never leave well enough alone, and have to play around with my images, but by doing so it makes me discover even more about my subject matter, and I love that too!
I also stumbled across this lovely poem by poet Judith Wright (who it seems was not just a wonderful poet, but a great woman!) while looking up info on Great Egrets.
Once as I travelled through a quiet evening,
I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still.
Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding;
each on its own white image looked its fill,
and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading -
thirty egrets in a quiet evening.
Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing,
your lucky eyes may light on such a pool.
As though for many years I had been waiting,
I watched in silence, till my heart was full
of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving,
and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.
I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still.
Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding;
each on its own white image looked its fill,
and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading -
thirty egrets in a quiet evening.
Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing,
your lucky eyes may light on such a pool.
As though for many years I had been waiting,
I watched in silence, till my heart was full
of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving,
and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.



























