Spent part of a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Alameda Creek near the Niles Staging Area. I’m surprised there is any creek left considering it has hardly rained at all this past year.

There were a few ducks and a large number of Canadian geese swimming in the water, but on this day it was the snowy egrets that drew my attention most. (Or perhaps just egret in the singular. I’m not sure if there were two of them, or just one flying back and forth as I walked along the waterfront.) I love egrets. They are at once both regal and funny looking. Stark and unignorable in their bright, white appearance, they try to camouflage themselves with the slow movements of a hunter carefully stalking its prey. It’s pretty easy for me to imagine them as dinosaurs. And it’s not surprising the Audubon Society chose an egret (the Great Egret) as their logo. Egrets are cool-looking birds.

Speaking of dinosaurs . . . Some experts believe the Tyrannosaurus may have had feathers. I like to image a T-Rex getting all floofy and basking in the sun like this egret:

As I walked over by the Stanley Bridge, another unignorable bird was the cliff swallow. Unlike the egret (or egrets), the swallows were numerous, with nests all over the bridge. In some ways they are the anti-egret. Always moving, moving, moving, moving, moving.

While I was under the bridge photographing the swallows, a little bird flitted into a bush and posed. The bird was shadowy and hard to identify, but I liked the picture anyway. It was like it was sitting in the middle of a constellation. Probably because of the little star-shaped remnants of the flowers left of the plant.

Staring into the bush, I was mesmerized, as if in a dream. And it was then, just as the little bird fluttered away, that I stumbled upon the graffiti under the bridge. It was clear that I had discovered something dark. Something disturbing. Something sinister.

There, right in the middle of the concrete and spray paint, was a clear depiction of an animal sacrifice. I knew that I had stumbled upon a notorious group. I knew I was in the lair of . . .

. . . the Cult of Hello Kitty.

Fearing for my wellbeing, and possibly my very soul, I hurried away from the bridge as quickly as possible, guided by a beautiful butterfly.

Oddly enough, it was a TIGER swallowtail. A remnant of the Kitty Cult? Hmm.

And now that I think about it, it led me right past CAT-tails. Double hmmm.

Whatever the case, it was the swallows that led me in, and the swallowtail that led me out. Goodbye Hello Kitty. Goodbye.