We see the big bird land, close to the edge of the river where the sea lavender is high now and the color of pale lilac. As tall as the adult he will become though perhaps not as much heft, it is only the subtle particulars of the mottling on his throat and the absence of a crown that gives his youth away. “Great blue heron,” I say, handing my neighbor Mike the binoculars while I set up the scope for his wife Colette and before I have the lens cap off Mike yells, “He’s got an eel!”
This is what happens when you invite another fisherman to your patch of the pond. He steals your luck. This though we are not catching fish or eating any. It’s a vegetarian dinner and Mike is not exactly a fisherman, he and Colette own Star Fish Market. But still. I have thousands of hours watching this marsh, sat patiently at marshes fresh and salt across the continent. I have seen great blues all year every year of my adult life and I have never seen a heron eat an eel. And Mike? Mike’s been in my living room exactly five minutes.
“It’s a snake,” I say. I’ve never seen a heron eat a snake, either.
At this point what’s happening in the marsh is the pale shadow of the indoor drama. My wife Valerie (this between furtive glances through the lens) is yelling, “I can’t watch it I can’t watch it!” but she does and Colette, just as glued to the scene peals out, “It’s disgusting!”
“It’s an eel,” I say.
“It’s huge!” Valerie says.
Fish stories notwithstanding, the eel – snake - whatever - though only about 2 feet long is half the height of the bird which in turn is a bit more than the distance from the heron’s beak to his gut. Huge enough.
“It’s yellow-green on the bottom,” Colette says. “Are eels that color on the bottom?”
“I saw those little fins behind the head. It’s an eel,” I repeat with authority. Authority is the last redoubt of Birder’s Ego.
“It’s going down. There it goes,” Mike says.
It’s down all right, but not forgotten. The heron’s entire neck is undulating with its contents of live eel. Half a second later the eel wriggles partway out.
“Gross!” Valerie says.
Even I am having trouble looking. It is not exactly the best complement to dinner and Valerie’s been cooking all day. Dolmadakia, kouloukokefthedis, fried haloumi, humus ba tahini, babaganoush, boreki – the whole catastrophe of labor-intensive Mediterranean delicacies designed to keep Greek and Arab and Jewish and Kurdish and Armenian women permanently in the kitchen - despite which sacrifice we’ve hardly touched a thing. Given the pre-prandial entertainment, Pepto-Bismol may yet be the main course.
“He’s stabbing it,” Colette says.
“It’s down,” Mike says.
“It’s up,” Valerie says.
“Yech!” someone says, and finally it’s over.
“He’s drinking,” Mike says.
“Ooh. Just like cookies and milk,” I say.
“We’re EATING,” Valerie calls, inviting us to table as her sister Penny and husband David come unsuspecting through the door. We tell them what they’ve missed, switch to white wine from red and let the conversation drift to more convivial things while we eat like potentates, to repletion.
Out in the salt marsh the young heron stands shock still on a bleached cedar snag, beak pointing up, neck stretched skyward digesting or trying to while I am reminded, uncomfortably, of Henry I (1100-1135) who died of eating a “surfeit of Lampreys.” I should not have worried. The next afternoon the heron returns, proof as he hunts stealthy along the banks that surfeit, like most things in life, is relative.
