Monday, June 8, 2009

More adventures from The Lake.

Last night we had another full moon, it was big and beautiful, hanging in the sky above our small and beautiful Lake.
I awoke at about 5 o'clock this morning and looking out at The Lake through the 10 floor to ceiling windows of our bedroom I saw a huge red moon hanging just above the trees across The Lake. A ribbon of red lay on the water all the way up to our bulkhead. I got up quickly, slipped on my shoes, got Ed's camera (Our English friends Margaret & Ed are staying with us for 3 weeks - Ed is an extraordinary photographer and has a much better camera than I do!) and stepped out onto our deck which is barely 100 feet from The Lake. I quickly snapped a couple of photos. While I was standing there admiring this lovely sight I heard some splashing and thought that it must be my neighbor getting his boat out to do some early morning fishing. But the splashing sounds increased, it sounded like waves, which I knew it wasn't because The Lake was quite still, could it be someone swimming? Surely not, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked across the lawn and down to our pier. As I approached the water the splashing sound got louder and I could hear it coming from several places. Even in the near darkness I could see the water churning on both sides of the pier as well as in front of my neighbors properties. I stepped onto the pier and almost fell over as the silence, apart from the splashing, was torn apart by a crashing and banging sound from right under my feet. By now it was apparent to me that the churning and splashing sounds were fish. But the huge apparition that rose up from under my feet could not be a fish surely? No, it was a Great Blue Heron that must have been feeding under the pier and had been disturbed by my feet over his head. He struggled noisily out from under there with wings flapping against the decking, poles and water and as soon as he was clear, rose gracefully into the air with a few hoarse squawks and flew off. Meanwhile, the water all around me was churning with the sights and sounds of huge fish. They were so big that their backs were out of the water at times, they were bumping into the bulkhead and the pilings of the pier. I estimated them to be between 2 and 3 feet long although over by my neighbors beach the disturbance was so great that they could have been bigger, or maybe there were just more of them. After watching for a few minutes I went into the house, woke up my friend Ed, told him to get his shoes on and follow me. Together we watched fascinated for another 10 minutes until the mosquitoes discovered us and we decided to go back to bed. Instead of going to bed I brewed my first coffee of the day and wrote my blog to tell you about this new adventure from my lovely Lake.
Added later - Oh, by the way, they are Carp and vary in lenghth from one foot to four feet - there are hundreds of them! We have all been watching them thrashing aorund in two's, three's and yes, even foursomes!! They come right in to the edge, so close you could literally touch them, if they weren't so fast.
Enjoy life, I do, Love David.

1 comment:

  1. I haven't had the pleasure of Herons close by, but one morning last week, I had a visit from a Hummingbird inside the house. Needless to say, it was extreemly scared, but it finally landed on the inside window ledge, took a look around, then flew out of the door without any assistance from me. Quite an experience.

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