Apparently the Saturday before Christmas has been named Panic Saturday by somebody or other usually called THEY or THEM. With that in mind I thought it was best to avoid any big towns or cities, so we drove along to Bridge of Allan for the day.
After having a mooch around the vintage charity shops there (didn’t buy anything) we took our usual walk along to the bridge. Here’s a view of the river, the bridge and a bit of the town we took a while ago.
This is the view from the opposite side of the bridge.
We wanted to see if the heron was around yesterday – and he was as you can see.
He’s quite well camouflaged – or is it a she? A bit blurred in this one:-
I recently heard someone saying that herons are supposed to be bad luck, which is weird because I’ve always feel that it’s a happy thing if I see a heron, and an elderly lady once pointed one out to me which was in the Waters of Leith and she said she always felt it was a good day when she saw one. What do you think, bad luck or good luck? Min you my mother always said peacocks were bad luck but I love their feathers so I ignore that and have a lot of the feathers in vases. I suppose I’m just not very superstitious about things like that.
Anyway, as you can see the Allanwater was looking very full and fast on Saturday, as you would expect, given the amount of rain we’ve had over the last month or so, and still it comes. Quite depressing really but I will begin to feel better about everything after the winter solstice – when the nights begin to get lighter again, slowly, slowly but surely.
I always feel lucky to see any kind of wildlife.
Lovely photos. So many of the rivers and waterways in our American cities have been hidden by roads and underground conduits. It’s my recollection that Providence, RI, uncovered their rivers years ago and now have lovely parks and water features running through the city. They even have big cauldrons of fire lit on the river sometimes. Lovely and dramatic.
Joan,
You know, I just couldn’t think what RI stood for so I had to Google it! Rhode Island of course. Providence looks lovely, I always prefer old towns here because they’re always by rivers, the reason for people settling there in the first place. I can’t imagine why people would want to conceal them.
What a lovely view the river presents. As for herons, I have never heard that they are bad luck. Like you I am always happy to see them so I count them as a positive!
Stefanie,
It is lovely in that area – Stirlingshire, we nearly moved there but it was a wee bit too far from family for us.
My sister and I were just talking last week about how much we love seeing herons, more than most other birds. We had seen one while driving through New Jersey. I had no idea some considered them to be bad luck. I poked around online and found a an “Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art” on Google Books that said among other things that the heron is a symbol of Buddhist meditation thanks to its stillness.
Christy,
That’s very interesting. I wish I could remember where I read about them being bad luck, it was in a fairly recent book that I read. I love their stillness but was also thrilled when one stalked over to the river bank and pounced on a small mammal, mouse or vole probably, I could only see the tail. Until then I thought they only ate fish!