Fairlight's Place in Space: September 2006

Monday, September 18, 2006

Laurel Lake

We got to the lake at 7:30 am. The fog didn't lift until a little after 10am.

An area where trees are submerged in water is known as standing timber. We have always called them "The Stickups". There were several large spider webs in the stickups. We couldn't figure out how the spiders got that far from shore. It reminded me of Charlotte's babies floating away on their webs. Some webs were stretched from trees at least six feet apart from each other. I was so excited to see this and to have my camera with me. At first, I didn't want to get my camera out because of the condensation from the dew and fog. BUT, when I saw the webs, I knew I couldn't pass up the opportunity to photograph them.

I was so excited about this pix! I know it doesn't look like much, but we were really fortunate to see this. For years, I have been taught that fish spawn in the spring. This is a pix of two bluegill beds. If you will look right in the center of the pix, you will see two flat circular areas with small stones. These are the spawning beds. There are two beds in this pix. Each bed had a male bluegill guarding it. We could not distinguish the eggs. Any time a minnow came near, the males would chase them away from the beds. We had pulled up into this little cove to find some shade for lunch and we found these beds. At first we couldn't believe it. It was the middle of September and these fish appeared to be too small to spawn. We watched them for almost an hour.

This is a close up of the larger bed and fish on the left of the above pix. Click on the pix to open it in another window and then move your curser over the lower right corner until you see the expand box. This will allow you to see the fish better. You can also save it to My Pictures and then use the zoom feature. It is hard to photograph objects that are under the water, but this is an extremely clear lake.

Dear husband found this little fellow when he tied up to let me get out on the bank and take pix of some weeds. It was too windy to take pix of the weeds. I did however get a decent shot of this little fellow sunning himself on the rocks. When we left this cove, he was in the shallow water. I also found dozens of ground webs on the bank. I will post one of them in the next series of pix.

The catch of the day! Not very big, but it made dear son very happy. He caught two on his own, and dear husband let him reel in a third. We practice catch and release and this one splashed his way back into the water!