Janet Haven

My father, an engineer by training, is a secret naturalist. Dad's always-entertaining letters to me are filled with commentary on weather patterns, interesting foliage, and geological changes rendered by the tides washing just outside my parents' summertime porch on Puget Sound. Dad's favorite topics, though, are the sea birds that he spots, both in Southern California, where my parents live in the wintertime, and in Washington, where they spend the warmer months. Over the summer, I get updates on the ducks and seagulls that float and splash in the neighborhood, and occasionally reports from further afield when Dad goes walking at Fort Worden.

Southern California doesn't usually yield quite such varied reports, but just recently Dad started seeing a blue heron on near the flood control channel that runs up from Seal Beach towards Long Beach. He managed to snap a picture of it perched on the peak of an aluminum-roofed building, and sent it on to me. Beautiful bird, isn't it?