Last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, the temperatures were in the 80s. Now, they are struggling to get into the 60s. The water temperature was up to the mid 70s but now is in the mid 60s. A week ago skinny dipping before bedtime was a good plan, now, not so much.
Last week started with near record breaking high temperatures. Now, the lake is back to the Fall reality. It has been near 40 in the mornings and only warmed up in the afternoon to the 60s. At the same time, the winds for the last couple of days have been calm so it has been enjoyable on the lake. Trees are changing so there is “some” color but it is not really ramped up to full color which hopefully will occur in a week or so. Now, there are places with color but there is also a lot of green. Pine cones have started to fall off the trees but there are still places where you walk and find gobs of pine pitch on your shoes (or bare feet if that is how you are walking).
The color is starting but is not great.
Other colors are changing, too. The loons are starting to lose their color. The last post showed a loon with grey behind the bill. Now, loons are starting to show much more change. In awhile, they will be looking like the chicks. Well, it is time for them to start thinking about heading back to the ocean for the winter but that won’t happen for another month or so.
These loons appear to be smaller than the loons that have been on the lake over the Summer.They are probably migrating. It seems as if the size of the loons is related to how far they fly inland. They are bigger if they don’t have to fly as far. I saw some loons in Upstate New York that were smaller than ours. I guess you can’t fly a big bird too far so smaller ones are the ones who go the distance. This does not detract from our loons, it is just a bit of trivia related to this wonderful species.