Little Blue Heron. San Diego River NWR.

I gave myself a morning off from intensive birding yesterday…only going out for a few hours to the easy birding along the San Diego River above the Sports Arena bridge. I went to find Burrowing Owls reported there…or I thought reported there. It turns out I had my directions wrong. Still, the channel above the bridge was full of birds…especially Little Blue Herons…and there were even two white-phase Little Blues. The Little Blues were relatively close by anything but Florida standards and I enjoyed watching and photographing them. This one made a complete three course meal. It caught the crab and ate it, then it ate seaweed for a while, and then it stepped out into the water had a few delicate drinks.

Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.

Brunch, of course, is a particularly human take on this scene. The Little Blue Herons, like most birds, feeds continuously, from before sun-up until it is too dark to see. “Feeds”, though we use the word for what birds do, might give the wrong impression as well. It is not like birds sit down to a laden table and or a full trough and feed. “Hunts” might be more accurate. Sun-up to sun-down the Little Blue Heron hunts. Occasionally during the course of its day it finds something to eat and eats it. And then it right back to the hunt. And, of course, during nesting season, the adult herons hunt for their whole brood. And yet Jesus, when he spoke of God’s care for us, used birds as an example. If God provides for the birds of the birds of the air, then certainly we can have confidence in God’s provision for our lives. Don’t worry, he says, about what we will eat, but live with thanksgiving. Take a lesson from the Little Blue.