utenzi

I got another early start this morning and decided to try to get more pictures of the beaver in that tunnel. This first picture is of my kayak on the dock as I walked down to the lake to get under way. It was still a little dark but the sun was almost up. This next picture is of two beaver in that tunnel I mentioned yesterday. I was about 20 feet in, maybe 3/4 of the way, and the two beaver were warning me to stay back. I suspect their home was just on the other side of the tunnel. It was too dark to see the critters clearly and even with the flash only their eyes were lit up. It was a little spooky 'cause they would slap their tails in warning--which is very loud in a small concrete tunnel--and each time it was a complete surprise since I had no visual cues that the noise was about to occur. On the way back to my parents' house I met up with this Blue Heron. He seemed to be guarding a boathouse. As sentries go, he seemed quite serious. Maybe he was just scouting out the best f...

This morning I got started before dawn and reached this cove just after the sun had risen. I posted about this place last March but back then the water level of the lake was about 15 feet lower. Instead of the pretty expanse of water pictured below, instead it was a stream of water flowing between high banks. In any case, at the end of that body of water seen above, you can just barely see a concrete structure. That turns out to be a bridge with two tunnels---seen below---that allow water from the uphill side of the road to flow down into the lake. And apparently it also allows a colony of beavers to live on one side of the road and forage for food in the lake. I tried to go through the tunnel in my kayak but I only got about 3/4 of the way through before my rudder grounded and I had to push myself back out backwards. Kinda got my claustrophobia thing going a little. Funny now, not so much then! The tunnel started seeming a whole lot narrower when I couldn't get the kayak to mov...