strafed by a pterordacyl

Strafed by a pterordacyl while running this morning.

Ok, not really.

But for a long moment it seemed as though it were so.

I was heading back to the car at the end of a 15-mile run through the Rocky River and Mill Stream Reservations. My route takes me along the Rocky River. It’s a good run, fairly flat except for a big hill near Berea Falls. Other than that just enough rolls to keep muscle boredom at bay. It’s all on an asphalt trail that often winds away from the road. It is nice to run in a car-free zone and the only thing to dodge is recreational cyclists and walkers. I cross the river several times on this route, sometimes over a bridge, other times over a ford, still others over old wooden trestle foot-bridges.

It was a sunny, gorgeous morning. The trees are just starting to turn. Maybe just a touch too warm to be running 15 miles. It was 58 degrees when I started out.

(Left to my own devices, I like to run in the high 40s to low 50s ideally.)

As I came back across the big road bridge over the Rocky River my eyes focused on a shadow in front of me. It had the shape and size to be a pterodactyl. What is THAT? Whatever it was, it also was making some sort of strange sound — think a goose with laryngitis on steroids. I quickly and instinctively ducked my head. Eons of flight or fight took over; adrenaline rushed and I think my body was quite prepared to suddenly bolt at a full sprint, despite having just run 14.75 miles. Fortunately, it was not a flying reptile from millions of years ago and fortunately although he was flying very low his long trailing legs didn’t brush my head. It was actually one of the many great blue herons that stalk the river magnificently hunting little fish, frogs, and whatever else they eat. They stand about four-feet tall with a nearly six foot wingspan and are impressive in the air.

It just looked like a pterosaur.

I stopped to watch this large bird sail down and land in the river. I see these four-foot tall avian hunters in the river very often, but I’ve never had one swoop down over my head like that. It looked incredibly prehistoric — like something that did not quite belong in the 21st century.

(The largest of the pterosaurs actually had wingspans of up to 36 feet. The biggest was known as Quetzalcoatlus — it lived during the late Cretaceous period in Texas. Yes, I was one of those kids who loved dinosaurs. I thought a trip to the Natural History museum was very cool.)

Tags: birds, blue heron, Cleveland, Running