Life On a Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

The guess-who bird
 

264

My favorite bird? Why, thanks for asking. It’s the __________.

[Fill in the blank with:]

a. red-winged blackbird
b. bufflehead
c. cormorant
d. variable [stet] thrush
e. coot (cute!)
f. (b)eagle
g. junco
h. woodduck
i. kinglet

It is okay to modify your answer according to the:
1.season
2. cloud cover
3. time of day (or night, perhaps)
4. water temperature
5. air same
6. wind flow

Answer? Tomorrow, or some day soon.

Black-tailed or mule deer, I don''t know which, from several summers ago

263

Walking our Labs yesterday, we entered the wooded Dorsey reach and, coming down a grade, encountered a  huge deer with a great white upturned tail. The dogs were quickly after it. He (obviously a buck, though I don't recall any antlers, so I might be wrong) reached a game trail in a couple of astonishingly high bounds and took a right, but slipped in the loose gravel on the blacktop and fell to its side in the scrub. Quickly it was on its feet and gone.

I whistled at the dogs and--oddly, this --they halted and turned back to me. I was certain they would persist in the chase and disobey my command; maybe they really didn't want to pursue the deer any farther, only follow a hot scent growing slowly colder--which is usually how it goes.

Whatever, it was a startling and exciting event in our tame lives. We went on, the dogs wild-eyed and panting hard, and Norma and I turned to each other, and began to recount the event, as we always do when something happens, and not until a few moments later did we both realize that it was a white-tailed deer, which is highly unusual, in this land of smaller black-tailed and mule deer.

So the sighting was a special treat.

Storm followed by spectacular sunset

262

A wind-lashed lake for the past two days, today we have calm again, the lake placid, carrying only a slight ripple and the sky overhead (where else?) spotted with broken clouds reflecting a rosy sunrise, somewhat obscured.

Ah, but the storm. Who can sleep with the conifers bent toward the ground and the wind howling? Not me, not my Labs, who barked repeatedly all Thursday night at what they were convinced were intruders. Intruders, I tried to convince them, would not be so noisy. And various items stored in the carport were distributed at random along the turnaround.

Now, as January slides quietly into February, we have these few moments of calm. But the consortium of weather persons tells us a new storm is rolling in, along with more winds and rain.

Already the local rivers are in flood.