The Great White Egret

Day after day it comes to these mud flats along with hot and hazy August mornings to feed on the returning tide’s bounty of small fish and other tiny sea life. The smell of sea-water rises above wharfs and enters open windows of small cottages facing the flats. Like a match bursting in a white flash it alights in shallow water, slides its wings in place and stands with beak pointing downward, patiently gazing into the water, its white reflection shimmering ghostly like wetness seeping into paper. Then with lightning speed its beak darts into the water and a catch: a small sunfish with prickly fins and tail; its scales glistening as it wriggles to escape the beak’s hold, a futile struggle. In amazement I watch the egret maneuver the sunfish in its beak until its head faces the opening of the egret’s long claustrophobic throat, and carefully chugs it down. Its hunger rewarded, it leaps to catch a sudden breeze, banks, and vanishes over marsh grass like a puff of smoke.