I’ve been working on this piece for a little while now trying to get the details where I want them. I got the idea for it one summer afternoon when we were getting ready to have a big thunderstorm. When they roll through sometimes the sky gets very dark with roiling clouds. It can look quite ominous. On that particular afternoon a small group of egrets were fleeing the storm and made a beautiful contrast to the dark clouds. They were too far away to identify as great egrets or snowy egrets, so I chose the more common great egret (Ardea alba) as my subject. They are one of the most common wading birds in central Florida and I became very fond of them when I worked at the nature park in Homosassa. Each summer they would nest in the trees around our gator pond. The gators keep raccoons and other predators away from the nests and are rewarded by getting to eat any young that fall out of the nests. At the park, though, our gators were well fed and rarely bothered them. On the rare occasions when one did fall we would go into the enclosure and get them. We hand raised half a dozen or so of them over the years when I was there.