The Herons Behind the Puddle
There are some neighbors you come to know because they introduce themselves. And then there are others you come to know simply because you keep showing up at the same place. Stella and Stanley belong to the second kind.
They are the Great Blue Herons who have become part of life Behind the Puddle on Lake Shore Drive. I don’t know where they go when they leave here. I don’t know exactly where they sleep, where else they fish, or whether they would have any idea that the humans sitting on the patio have given them names. But over the course of this summer, I have learned their rhythms. Or at least some of them.
And somewhere along the way, without realizing it was happening, I became attached.
First, There Was a Heron
In the beginning, seeing a Great Blue Heron at the puddle felt like an event. Everything about a heron seems slightly improbable. Those incredibly long legs. That enormous wingspan. The long neck that can somehow disappear into itself and then stretch out farther than seems possible.
The patience. The stillness. And then, suddenly, the speed. One moment a heron can stand so completely motionless that it almost becomes part of the shoreline. The next, its head disappears into the water and comes back with a fish.
I could watch it forever. And apparently, this summer, I nearly have.
Then There Were Two
Eventually I realized there wasn’t just one heron visiting the puddle. There were two. And because everything around here eventually seems to acquire a name, they became Stella and Stanley.
Naming them didn’t make them ours. They remain completely wild, living lives that have very little to do with the names we have assigned them or the stories I tell from the patio. But naming them did change something. It gave me a way to notice them as individuals.
I began watching for them. Looking toward their favorite fishing spots. Noticing when one arrived. Wondering where the other one was. And noticing even more when neither of them came.
Meet Stella
Stella has become especially familiar. She fishes along the edges of the puddle, standing in water shallow enough that sometimes I wonder how there could possibly be anything worth catching. Apparently, Stella knows better.
She waits. And waits. And waits some more. Then comes that lightning-fast strike into the water. Sometimes she catches something.
Sometimes she doesn’t. And then she simply begins again. There is something incredibly peaceful about watching her fish. She isn’t worried about whether I think she has been successful. She doesn’t seem discouraged when one attempt doesn’t produce anything.
She just keeps paying attention. Watching. Waiting. Trying again.
I have taken photographs of her. I have taken videos of her. I have watched her through the window and from the patio. And somehow I still haven’t reached the point where seeing her feels ordinary. When Stella arrives, I still look.
Meet Stanley
Stanley has provided his own entertainment. Great Blue Herons are extraordinarily graceful birds, right up until occasionally they aren’t. We’ve watched tree landings that weren’t quite as elegant as expected. We’ve seen the balancing, repositioning and general awkwardness that reminds me that even a bird capable of looking prehistoric and majestic can have a less-than-perfect moment.
We’ve watched one heron chase the other toward the trees. We’ve watched them fish. We’ve watched them fly across the puddle. And we’ve learned that their enormous wings make their arrival impossible to miss if we happen to be looking in the right direction.
Stanley has helped remind me that nature doesn’t have to be solemn to be meaningful. Sometimes it is simply funny.
When They Aren’t Here
Perhaps one of the clearest signs of how important Stella and Stanley have become is what happens when I don’t see them. I notice. There have been days this summer when they disappeared.
I knew perfectly well that wild birds do not report their travel plans to the woman sitting on the patio. Still, I wondered. Where are they? Are they okay? Did something change?
Will they come back? And then one would appear again. Walking through the shallows. Standing along the bank. Flying across the water.
And I would feel an unreasonable amount of happiness over the return of a bird who never actually belonged to me in the first place. Maybe that is part of what loving a place does. It teaches you to miss things.
The Puddle Through Their Eyes
The puddle isn’t impressive by most definitions. It is shallow. It fills and empties with the weather. There are times when some of the geese can swim and others simply walk across it. There are days when it looks more like mud than water.
For years, I could easily see everything the puddle wasn’t. What it could be if it were dredged. What it once was. What we might someday make it.
Stella and Stanley don’t seem particularly concerned about any of that. To them, this imperfect little body of water offers fish. A shoreline. A place to stand. A place to hunt.
A place worth returning to. Watching them has helped me understand something I have been slowly learning all summer: Something does not have to become more in order to matter.
The puddle is already useful. Already alive. Already enough for something. And sometimes it is enough for a Great Blue Heron.
What They Have Given Me
I don’t think I understood when we built the patio how much my relationship with this little ecosystem would change. I expected a place to sit outside. I didn’t expect to become this invested in the daily activities of geese, ducks, squirrels, turtles, dragonflies, hummingbirds, a beaver, and two enormous blue-gray birds. And I certainly didn’t expect those animals to change something in me.
But Stella and Stanley have. There have been days this summer when I needed quiet. Days when my body hurt. Days when life felt complicated. Days when there were things I couldn’t fix.
And then Stella would be standing in the water. Or Stanley would fly across the puddle. And for a little while, there was nothing I needed to accomplish. Nothing I needed to solve. I could simply watch.
Their lives gave me somewhere else to put my attention. Not as an escape from my own life, but as a way of returning to it differently. More slowly. More gently. More aware of what was right in front of me.
Still Amazed
You would think eventually I would get used to them. I haven’t. I still get excited when I see Stella fishing. I still call attention to Stanley when he appears. I still reach for my phone.
I still watch when one spreads those enormous wings and lifts itself from the water. And I am glad the wonder hasn’t worn off. Because maybe the goal was never to make the extraordinary ordinary. Maybe it was to become better at recognizing how much extraordinary has been living beside us all along.
Stella and Stanley didn’t create the puddle. They didn’t build the patio. They certainly didn’t come here intending to teach me anything. But they have become part of the story of why this place matters so much to me.
I don’t know whether the puddle would have changed me quite as profoundly without them. Maybe it would have. There are certainly enough other neighbors around here willing to teach me something.
But I know this: When I think about this summer Behind the Puddle, Stella and Stanley will be there. Standing quietly at the water’s edge. Fishing. Flying.
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