The day was predicted to be breezy this past Thursday, but the water was still in the long Jumping Off Rock cove. We found loons there most everywhere we ventured to look. All were feeding or in the search for food. There seemed to be ample supplies of bait fish around for them. We watched 2 different birds for an hour each, which is the procedure for the research being done here. Busting bait balls up, herring fleeing in mid-air, only for their silvery sides to reflect the brightness of the mid-day sun. There was an adult eagle on a tree behind the feeding loons, who gracefully swept down, and missed, in search of his next meal. So what about the peregrine, who sat for hours in the lone dead tree on the swept away island just as you come out of Jumping Rock cove? He/she sat there for hours, on the same tree. They don’t eat fish and prey on small, in-flight birds, not big water birds like loons. Kay suggested it was spending the afternoon digesting a very satisfying earlier catch. I think she is likely just right.
PEAK REPORT. I think I will, with this column, officially resign from the whole conversation on when ‘peak’ is in fall around here. It is as beautiful along the shore of the lake now as it was in late October, as it was last week and weekend. Fall color season is a long, mellow natural event here, with no particular ‘peak’ to the discerning eye. The ‘peak’ lasts for weeks. Now what could be better! ~ B