Smart, big bird is a reminder of need to adapt

PERDIDO KEY, Fla. - It was a close encounter of the bird kind.

When my husband and I pulled our car up in front of the seafood store, ready to buy some heads-on shrimp and ice it down to bring back home, we were surprised to see a greeter, a kind of feathery host.

We were greeted not by the owner, nor the manager, nor the clerk at the store, but by a regular.

"He practically lives out there," one of the clerks told us. "He's been there for years."

The "he" in question is a great blue heron, one who knows his way from the shore to the table. The bird found us of no interest, since we were not carrying fish in our pockets and did not smell of the sea, and he went back to pacing the wooden front porch and peering, with his beady birdy eyes, into the shop.

He stood on his skinny legs, barely moving to the side as customers came in. He wasn't really a nuisance; in fact, the owner said the customers kind of like him, the way they might like a talking parrot or a brilliant yellow canary. He adds character to the ramshackle wooden building, a bit of charm.

"And had they ever named the heron?" I asked. "Is he Homer or Henrietta or Howard?"

"He's got a name all right," the old man behind the counter said, wiping his hands on his apron. "That damn bird."

It seems TDB had rushed into a back door one day a few years ago, hopped onto the cutting counter, and scarfed down forty dollars worth of fresh seafood in about forty seconds in a fly-by crime spree. He was gone before they could stop him.

Then, like a thief returning to the scene of the crime, he came back, looking innocent, and stayed. Maybe he knows his species is protected....