FINALLY, SOME PEACE ON THIS LAKE

Douglas Lake has been whipped to a froth over the entire past month due to bass tournaments and pleasure boaters.  It's been nuts!.  Today, however, the morning was totally quiet without more than three boats on the upper end of the reservoir.  I guess everyone is hiding out from the 94 degree heat we have right now.  I love it!

I was on the water a little past sun up and headed upstream at a speed of 8 miles per hour.  I kicked back and enjoyed the shoreline.

The predominant flower of the week has been the trumpet flower and it remains prominent.  Those bell shaped flowers are like red decorations on a Christmas tree.

 I didn't linger near the ospreys for long as they all have babies and become upset easily so I kept a further than normal distance and kept moving past, all the time sniping with the camera.  Tough shooting as usual from this tossing boat.

 Great blue herons and cormorants are nesting now and all have babies.  They are difficult to figure out as its now mid June and they are all still on the nest.  I'll have to look into it.  Below are three adults and one baby, who is on the extreme left side of the picture.

The next four shots below are of a baby great blue heron.

 The little belted kingfisher flew the moment I pushed the shutter for the second picture.  Little scamp!

 I noticed a movement on the very top of a dead tree.  Something was up there.  It was a tufted titmouse and he lived in that hole just down from the top.  These were long shots for sure.  the picture below shows sort of what my eye noticed.  But, that isn't really the true picture as the camera lens in its closed up format is looking through 120mm of glass.  

The shots that follow are taken at 500 mm.

The above shot was gorgeous in real life.