Metchosin, I too am given dragonfly gifts! Most of my friends know the attraction I feel for them. One friend was riding his bike at high speed on a path and saw something that looked familiar to him. He turned around and went back and it was a large black dragonfly in the path, dead, but in perfect order. He put it on a bed of cotton and broght it to me. I still have it.

About 3 blocks from here in the summertime is a colony of Great Blue Herons. I counted nine of them in the nests and in the treetops. Although I tell tourists about them (tourists are transient), we are careful not to let too many local people know about them, so the huge birds don't get harassed or driven away. The herons spend a lot of daytime hours fishing at the liveaboard harbor, standing motioneless for long minutes in the shallow water.

Speaking of eagles- as it happens, I enjoy ravens more but eagles are ok too - one day I was reading at my window on the third floor of the large house where I live when I saw a shadow cross the window. I looked up and there it came again. It was an eagle, close enough that I could see his yellow eye as he peered in. He had probably seen his reflection in the glass and come back to check it out.

An apartment window a few blocks from here used to have in it a poster of an eagle. The eagle, with its fierce eyes overlooking the parking lot, was captioned "I am smiling."