A digression back to present time: dog walk

Hello, everyone.

Today I got going early (it's been about 105F/40C? for some days in the afternoons here) about 8 with the dogs and we walked on some soft, plowed dry dirt and then some hard dirt that's more of an access way for the ditch pictured below. Then returned by way of the soft stuff--not a big distance, but some intensity. The softest parts of the plowed dirt remind me of walking on the third afternoon in Portugal, where the powder dry dust was inches deep and gave very little purchase to tired feet, approaching the mesa of Santarem.

We saw an unusual bird watching the water in the "holding pond" (looks like a ditch to me) on the way.

Bird on a crossing pipe

I estimate he's about two or three times as big as the boat-tailed grackles that fly all around here. He has white eyebrow flashes and yellow legs and a thick, straight beak like a kingfisher. But I wonder if he's a kind of a crane? Any bird experts that want to chime in with a comment and helps us all out are welcome to do so!