Within Sight of the Barn

Description

A finished composition from the same July evening: two young herons stand close on their nest at the heart of the cottonwood, one slate-dark and turned away, the other streaked in buff and facing out, while beyond the pale worked field the rooflines of the ranch buildings show at the top of the frame. The light here is soft and even, the great white limbs and heavy leaves wrapping the nest like a frame within the frame. It places the rookery where it truly lives, a hundred yards of air from the home place, close enough that the birds surely keep track of the household as much as the household keeps track of them.