Keeping an Eye on the Barn Lot

Description

A lone great blue heron settles low on its bleached-stick nest at canopy height, head swiveled back over one wing as if it has just heard something worth knowing from the far shore of the canola. Behind it, ripening canola runs clear to a red-roofed barn in the corner of the frame, the cottonwood leaves still holding the last soft green of a July evening. It is the picture of a landowner at day’s end, unhurried and mildly suspicious, and unwilling to turn in until the neighbors settle down.