Lake News–Peak Fall Colors
The fall colors turned out especially brilliant this year. We’re at peak fall colors. It’s hard not to be thunderstruck by the intensity of the colors. With the cooler temperatures, I fear the show will be ending soon.
There’s lots of activity on the trails these days. Small migrating groups of finches were fluttering around today, dotting back and forth across my path. I’m going to miss the migrating birds when they’re all gone. The silence that follows their departure is almost deafening.
We’ve been treated to some amazing sights this fall. The eagles are passing through, along with the coots. We don’t see a lot of coots on our bay, but they’re easy to spot, forming such tight clusters. A raft of them were on the water the other day, tight as could be. Two eagles were soaring overhead. One by one the eagles swooped down on the coots in a dramatic show. The coots waited until the very last second before diving under. The eagles didn’t dive into the water, but slapped the water with their wings. Again and again, they tried their luck, but the coots evaded them every time. I’m reminded of how coots like other birds that are prey of raptors instinctively know the shape of their nemesis. They often don’t have an opportunity to learn it, so they must be hardwired, as it were, to spot danger.
We’ve been enjoying a few warm days. It’s nice for some late season boat rides. We don what we refer to affectionately as the “Door County look”, wearing shorts with a polar fleece pullover. Though it seems so practical, we used to find that we only dressed this way when were were up in Door County, Wisconsin on vacation. We’ve experienced temperatures into the 30s in the middle of June, so a warm pullover is just the thing.
The one bad thing though about these warm days are the box elder bugs and asian beetles. We’ve been fortunate not to be especially plagued, but some have. It’s been declared an especially bad year because of drier weather earlier in the year. Not only the box elder bugs, but the bees have been horrible. We may be sitting in our boat in the middle of the lake. No sooner than we have a glass of wine poured and the bees appear. I know, desperate people (or in this case, bees) do desperate things like flying across open water. No matter. It’ll soon be time to cozy up by the fire and enjoy that glass of wine in peace.
