THE WATER IS GETTING SHALLOW

Douglas Lake is dropping in water level 1.5 feet per week.  It won't be long until I won't even be able to drive the boat past the Leadvale boat ramp.  Rankin boat ramp is the next ramp up river and there isn't enough water to float the boat up there now.  Rankin is where I got all the great bird pictures throughout the summer. I was busy with fishermen today so I just took photos of flying critters as they appeared while I went from boat to boat talking to fishermen.  I'm noticing more and more gulls on the lake the closer we get to fall.  The gull above is a ring billed gull.

 Two fishermen in a small aluminum boat waved me over to talk.  They always want something when they wave me over. "Boy, are we glad to see you!"
I asked, "What's up?"
He replied , "Somebody's up there rolling big rocks down the hill at us.  Here comes another one."
A big rock rolled out of the trees and down over the steep river bank and splashed into the river right in front of the guys boat.
I had a suspicion what the problem was and I was right.  A goat was grazing along the almost vertical cliff face far up on the cliff.  He was dislodging rocks as he moved along.  I pointed this out to the fishermen and they were in disbelief. You may remember the goat I photographed last week on the shoreline.

Above:  A real tricky job of panning with the camera.  That duck is really moving out!

Got to have a green heron in here somewhere.
I saw a great egret standing in a tree and the more I looked at him the more I was convinced he wasn't an egret.  Great egrets are white - period.  They have black legs also.  This bird had coloration on its plumage.  It has to be an egret but he does appear a bit odd.

The following shots depict one of the most somber moments I can imagine.  The peace of this scene can actually be felt.  It is transmitted to the viewer.

Ring billed gulls are appearing on the lake this week.  First a few showed up and then more.

A bald eagle flew out of a tree and I wasn't ready.  This is the second time this week that bald eagles have shown me their tail end as they disappear into the sky.\

There were some photo ops with great egrets this afternoon too.

The cormorant below, I think, is one of the best cormorant shots I have taken to date.

Damsel fly follows"

I took many more photos today but they are similar to the ones above.  I'm not very motivated to be wordy tonight so I'll just say bye for now.  Thanks for looking in on the blog.