Last week as I exited my car in a sprawling Howard County neighborhood, a loud flapping sound caught me completely by surprise. Just 10 feet to my left, from out of a drainage ditch, flew a massive bird. I ducked in alarm, and then felt my pulse return to normal as the bird slowly settled on a tree limb leaning into the unnatural stream.
The very slow wingbeats were both clumsy-sounding and strangely majestic at the same time. And the bird looked shaggy and gray.
It wasn’t until I was back on the road again that I realized what the bird had been. The car in front of me had Chesapeake Bay plates which are graced with the only species to rival the blue crab as a symbol of our healthy bay: the great blue heron.
