Return of the Heron

This time of the year is very disheartening for someone who rides a bike. The snow is generally gone from the roads however, the cleanup crews haven't removed the sand and gravel from the shoulders of the highways yet. That's fine on the rural roads because there's not much of a shoulder and I generally ride in the travel lane. It's not so fine on the State Highways; taking the lane with cars going 60+ mph is not something I want to do. So, I'm fairly limited in my selection of routes to ride and they tend to get boring after a while. One of my staple rides is out to our local gravel pit; it goes past some ponds

where there is usually some type of water fowl. Today I saw a Great Blue Heron; I've seen it there before however, I didn't see it last year and I thought it had either fallen prey to a predator or found a different nesting area. It surprised me today, so I'll have to be better prepared to get a picture of it.
*edit--drove out today (Sunday)and got the picture.