Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Estero Llano Grande SP and World Birding Center, Weslaco TX

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus

The Yellow-crowned Night Heron is one grumpy looking bird. In fact all Night Herons, perhaps because of their large heads and the way they suck their necks down between their shoulders, have the same look of gloom…if not outright doom. “It is not easy,” they seem to say, “being a Night Heron.” The fact that they invariably have a little tuft of feathers caught at the tip of their beaks from preening does not help any. They are, of course, much more active, as the name implies, at night, when they hunt. I will admit I have never seen one at night. They might be a very different bird. When I see them they are resting…off duty, so to speak…and their general funk might be just my interpretation of their half-asleep state. I might look a little grumpy myself if some intruding human got close enough to my perch to wake me in the middle of the night…err…this is a difficult metaphor to keep straight but you see what I mean. Of course, the generous eye gets beyond first impressions to sees the beauty in the bird, and something of it’s nobility. In this wide-eyed specimen the eye alone is enough to redeem the bird. The eye compels us to take in the elegance of the gray and black (carefully preened) plumage, the golden crown, and the strength of the beak. Yes, like all God’s creatures, the Yellow-crowned Night Heron has its own beauty. The generous eye is always rewarded by the light that fills all creation.

Happy Sunday!