Great snow heron

I noticed the same on Sunday. A friend and I walked the Emerald Necklace from the Fenway Center to Jamaica Pond. When we were along the Muddy River near Longwood, we saw one make an almost humorously clumsy take-off, which immediately became like a sail in the wind as it silently glided by us (closely followed by its mate, whose launch we missed).

I used to work at a building located next to a wetland in Bedford. One of my coworkers was there alone one Saturday, and there was a Great Egret - an all-white heron almost as big as the Great Blue - standing out in the marsh. It took off just as a Stealth Fighter, in town for some kind of flyover, passed overhead on its way into Hanscom. He said it was like seeing a pure white prehistoric creature and its pure black robot-cousin from the future juxtaposed.