I sat one summer evening and watched a great blue heron make his descent from the top of the hill into the valley. He came down at a measured deliberate pace, stately as always, like a dignitary going down a stair. And then, at a point I judged to be midway over the river, without at all varying his wingbeat he did a backward turn in the air, a loop-the-loop. It could only have been a gesture of pure exuberance, of joy – a speaking of his sense of the evening, the day’s fulfillment, his descent homeward. He made just the one slow turn, and then flew on out of sight in the direction of a slew
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