There’s a group of photographers who meet occasionally at Waialae Beach Park before dawn, then go in search of their chosen spots to catch their photos of the sunrise.

This guy is more regular. He’s usually at the beach a couple of days a week. One of these days I’ll have to stop and learn more about his efforts.

Unfortunately, yesterday morning he set up his tripod at the mouth of the stream that runs through the park.

I say “unfortunately” because that’s been the favorite early morning territory of a night heron at this time of year. There are several herons that we see in the area. This one heron fishes in the dark by standing in shallow water that washes across a sand bar where the stream meets the ocean, then picks his breakfast as the buffet swims by.

Before we saw the photographer, we saw the heron taking wing and flying inland, following the stream. A few minutes later, as we got down to the beach, I understood what had happened.

Meanwhile, the Sony Open golf tournament is disrupting events in the neighborhood. The beach park has been taken over for use as a parking lot for those with passes from one of the sponsor. On street parking has been banned between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily along all streets near the golf course. The main tournament starts tomorrow. I will be surprised if we see any evidence of large crowds in attendance.

On the other hand, the golf course looks as good as we’ve ever seen it. The crews that tend the course know exactly how to get it into peak condition right on schedule. We don’t golf, but we walk along the course most mornings to get over to the beach on the other side, so we’ve watched the annual cycle of maintenance over three annual cycles. Following one of these crews through their yearly tasks might make an interesting book, it seems to me.

Anyway, the main tournament starts tomorrow after several days of warm-up events. Hopefully it won’t get any more disruptive.