After watching these 2 birds from the egg, through near fatal attacks, until full size, our biggest fear was to arrive one day to an empty nest. A story with no ending. However…

The larger of the 2 was moving around outside the nest. Bouncing with the wind, and just staring into space.

Suddenly he just jumped, and I was completely unprepared. Obviously he wasn’t.

A slight drop, a bit lower than was comfortably,  but a flight that was pretty smooth.

The landing could have been better, at the least a better spot than in the middle of the tree branches.

Both of us breathed a sigh of relief on the landing. The heron was funny since all of a sudden he was looking around, breathing heavy, in a ‘oh ____ what have I done’ moment.