"My" Green-backed heron

It's gone now in autumn, but it spent a lot of time this summer at my houseboat, and I was delighted every time it graced my space with its appearance. It's a green heron, now called green-backed, and somewhat rare. I'd seen only a few in my lifetime until this one took up residence here. I pointed it out to many people who'd never set eyes on one.

It is perched here on the stringer next to my tenderhouse. If you were staying in the guest room of my houseboat you could look outside your window and see this view. Whenever I came outside it would fly off to the opposite shore, but in the summer when I was regularly swimming back there, it might hop to a more sheltered spot but stayed put as I glided past.

 

 

I saw it hunched over like this and thought it was sleeping, then it dove into the water and came up with a fish in its mouth and I realized, like the patient great blue herons, it was biding its time.