June 7, 2008

Green Lane Reservoir

(shot with Sony DSC-P200)
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Only one week into June and already it's over 90 degrees! Time to head to the lake. For two weeks, my recreation was hindered by car trouble. This week, only the price of a gallon of gasoline ($3.97) stood in my way.

I decided, this week, to begin exploring the shoreline around the lake.
The sharp peninsula to the north of the boat park has always seemed
particularly odd. What's even more odd, however...



Is how very different things look down on the water level.
The arrow in this picture indicates the clump of trees at the
very tip of the peninsula. Does it look anything like the
aerial shot?



Here, I have passed the point and am looking down into the
inlet. Somewhere, up ahead, there's a feeder stream of some kind.



Here's another turtle, enjoying a sun-bake. After he fled my
paparazzi camera, I discovered he'd been perched on a submerged
car tire. There are a number of these castoff tires along the
shoreline. I don't know if they are litter, or someone's
deliberate habitat creation.



The buildings up on the land belong to the local water treatment plant.
It's not clear from the water whether it treats wastewater or minicipal
drinking water. I could make out some familiar features: circular
tricling filters and what could only be a screw pump.



Three geese seemed concerned with my approach. Here, up ahead, was
the tributary you can see in the upper portion of the aerial photo.
I discovered later that this creek, whatever its name, extends north
crossing under Montgomery Avenue, near the Edmund Optics plant.



I never got anywhere near Montgomery Avenue, though.
In this picture, my boat is lodged on the muddy bottom of the creek.
The bubbles you see up ahead are made by one of many
very large fish thrashing around in 3 inches or less of water.
I guess they must be catfish, because it's all mud around here.
In the shadows under the branches and all along the root-choked
banks, you can hear these creatures thrashing around, their gills
making a *kissing* noise as first one side, then the other come
out of the water. I didn't stay here very long.



Still muddy and shallow, but here I stopped to admire the
sweet-smelling blossoms along the bank.






As I passed the flowering bushes, a duck spooked from her
nest and took off across the lake.



This tree was as far west as I would go. I turned back
and decided to follow the shoreline around the other side
of the peninsula, back to the boat park.



The view from that tall tree back toward the tip of
the peninsula. Beyond that on the right is the eagles' nest.
Beyond that, I'm not exactly sure.



Boats on the lake are supposed to be limited to electric motors only.
This guy was ripping along at a good pace. But maybe it was a ranger boat.



No lack of lush vegetation along the banks.



Up ahead, a very porous wetland. I could hear lots of wildlife back
in those weeds.



My eyes were caught by a bright red object up in the green cover.



He didn't stay still for very long, hopping from tree to tree.
But he seemed kind of intrigued by my boat, that was almost
the same color as his feathers.



This is the best picture I got; blurred by excessive motion.
A cardinal, right?



Now almost all the way back around to the boat park,
you can see the tiny shed where the summer attendants check you in
and out. Looks like a Pepsi machine off to the left.



This is the best you can do if you want to rent a boat: flat-bottomed
rowboats suitable for fishing and not much else.



Another figitive bird, this one black with bright red shoulders.
That makes it an oriole, right?



And then I was back around to the boat park. Total time, about two hours.



And on the way out of the park, I spied this little goose family.



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