Letter - A new mate every year

Every morning I take a long walk through Beacon Hill Park, admiring the beauty of nature. For the past few days, just before I reached Goodacre Lake, I could hear little chicks, making all kinds of baby calls for food. "Feed me! Feed me!"

Looking up through the branches of a big tall tree, I can see the bottom of several nests in the heronry. The Blue Herons have a family life all of their own. First of all many birds mate for life, the mallards for instance. But not the Herons. Every year the male searches around for a new bride, and without the expense of a divorce lawyer.

So after the romance is over, all the Herons get busy and help each other building or fixing the old nests. Now the female chooses a spot to lay her eggs, and the first thing she does, is to tell her husband to sit and hatch the eggs, while she flies to the Ocean to get their meal.  At night the roles are reversed: she sits on the eggs, and tells her husband to get lost. I am not ready to swear on a bible, but late at night, sitting at a local bar, I am convinced that I have seen a few red-faced Herons having a few.  After all this is Victoria, and anything can happen and often it does.

A few years ago, I am told that one of those babies, too anxious to leave the nest, fell on the ground. A group of good samaritans decided to adopt him. He was fed fresh fish daily and grew to be a beautiful bird, and they called him Henry. Every day, he waits for his friends, and can guess, if we have food in our pockets or not. Then, walking like a top model, wearing these eight inches heels, hurries to meet us, and expects a can of sardines, oysters or anything fishy. Of course, he prefers that we stand near the lake where he can dip his food in water, before gulping it down in seconds.

Now I can't wait to see the new babies learning how to fly, but I hope they will not join Henry. After all the Blue Herons have a perfect life. Imagine, they have never heard: "You never listen." or "I told you so".

Al Goguen