What Came After the Fisher Cat

Beech tree leaves are good rain intercepters...well, up to a point. But though I got well doused with the downpour I got to see a fisher cat, a blue jay attack a massive hawk for (I surmise) invading his nest, something big and black came on the heels of the fisher cat thereby providing my imagination with the first impression that here was another wild thing only a good deal bigger and with a growl that could have been the growl of a black wolf. But alas, it was only the uneventful growl of a domestic dog (easy enough to handle). Then if all this was not enough some time later, when it began to rain in earnest, there in the same place I saw the pileated woodpecker and the owl on Saturday was a black capped night heron. He immediately flew off but perched only a short distance away where I could watch him preen himself. He was as was I not merely resigned to the drenching rain but actually I think enjoying it.