Mutual of Omaha presents

(Okay, some of you are probably too young to get that joke, but I know my sister does!)

Wildlife spotted this evening along Meadowbrook Creek as it meanders near Barry Park--an area picturesquely known as the "Meadowbrook Detention Basin":

• two goldfinches--the first I've seen this year (in fact, it took me a couple of minutes to remember what the heck they're called!)
• countless redwinged blackbirds hollering at each other ("skrEEEE--stay away from my area!")
• one mallard, hanging in the middle of a small pond, either protecting a nearby nesting female or pretending to be protecting a nearby female in order to save face...er...bill...
• robins--lots, though not as copious as blackbirds
• starlings--ditto
• European sparrows, who somehow have not mastered the art of gripping tall grasses like the blackbirds, who seem to be twice their size
• a pair of Canada geese
• four koi, or else just really big goldfish gone wild (I was going to say they didn't belong, but then, neither do I, or the starlings, or the sparrows, or even the mallards, for that matter)

(And for you Wild Kingdom fans, no, I did not clamber into the middle of the marsh with a net to capture an unsuspecting bird and relocate it. Though there was a sweet little plover there last week, all by itself, and I wonder if maybe it could have used a little guidance.)

Great Blue Heron

Two weeks ago, you stood at the edge of the small pond on the edge of campus, wings half-stretched akimbo in the sun. I almost didn't see you as I drove past, just a gray shape out of the corner of my eye. But something made me turn around and go back, and I parked in the student lot alongside the path that winds past the pond, and sat on the grass, admiring your gawky elegance. A student sat on the other side, crossed legs, upturned hands resting on knees, meditating.

When I saw you again on Tuesday, did you know? Did you know that boy was beneath the water? Were you waiting for the search team to reach that spot? You gave me such joy when I saw you then, again, my heart lifting at the sight of you against the backdrop of daffodils and lawn.

Now, I'm afraid to look, afraid I'll imagine what might have happened on his walk home early Sunday morning, back to the residence hall that he was to move out of in only a few weeks. Afraid to think of the family that still awaits him. Afraid to think of fellow students, in shock, confronting mortality in a way 18-year-old Americans, particularly those at a private college on a hill, seldom have to.