Hot Summer
Hello, and welcome back.
Looking back since I last posted, it’s been quite a transition. We went from ice on the lakes to blistering heat, probably the hottest May I can remember, followed by plenty of storms.
Ice sounds really nice about now, so let’s start with that. At Grand Beach, a strong west wind piled up the melting sheets up on the shore, sometimes creating a “frozen wave” effect:
For those wondering, the dark sky in the first shot is due to a lack of upper level haze, which moved in over the course of the day, plus the relative angle of the sun. A couple hours later made a nice “pre-sunset”:
There was plenty of bird activity during this time, including a goose playing hide and seek among the ice piles, and the silhouette of a lesser yellowlegs. But my favourite was a pair of snow buntings foraging among the zebra mussel shells, scratching their heads and licking the sand grains:
These birds are tiny, and you may be amused by my efforts to slowly creep towards them:
A few notes. First I said “elbow marks”, but those are actually my toes. Second, the buntings seemed to get used to me after a while. Since they normally spend their summers above the arctic circle, I figured their comfort was because I was acting more like a seal than a human. Third, because I was acting like a seal, my abs were killing me for 3 days after! 😄
Finally the ice dwindled down to almost nothing:
Then the heat kicked off. Here a couple of scrubby oaks are begging for water from the clouds:
I spent the hottest day hiking the tick-infested shores of Shoal Lakes. Occasionally I’d look down, and there would be a hockey-puck sized patch of fresh ticks, ready to be flicked away, hopefully eventually into some bird’s gullet. There were barely any birds to be seen, clearly they were smarter than I, and had retreated to the relatively cooler forest. Meanwhile, sitting bored and hot at the edge of the lakes, I noticed the warm edge water was perfect for the breeding water striders. The telephoto lens I use for birds does a pretty good job with these subjects, and I had to laugh at their double-decker skimming, they looked so adorable. I named this pair:
The Adventures of Doug and Betty
Finally towards the end of the day, the sky began to gain some texture and drama, with the promise of rain:
That’s it for this month, thanks for reading, and take care!
PS: people have left comments a few times, these are much appreciated! There isn’t really a good feedback mechanism to respond with, so I just thought I’d mention that they aren’t ignored. Cheers!