An Early Morning

We got up at 5am this morning... my spine has been killing me... pain through the left side of my pelvis radiating to my hip (I'm even feeling it through my groin... fun times)... and enough pain that it is keeping me up most of the night so we got up at 5am this morning and, fortunately, we were treated to quite a show!

First, we saw blue sky! That is a bit unusual at the lake early in the morning since the lake is often shrouded in fog at this time of day. This morning was beautiful! (It is now overcast, windy and we are experiencing a passing shower.)

Next, as I was sitting here at my desk overlooking the lake... with Sheila sitting on the couch beside me... I noticed something floating in the middle of the lake. It looked like a log... then it started changing direction slightly and we were debating whether it was a beaver or something along those lines... we both agreed it was too large to be a beaver... 


I grabbed one of the cameras off my desk... the one with the longest lens mounted on it... 600mm... I figured I could use the camera as a pair of binoculars... I immediately thought if it was indeed a log, it must have the rough shape which sort of looks like some sort of animal...  but, it would need to be a BIG animal because we are quite a distance away and it was a lot larger than loons at that distance...

This big blob changed direction again... in my head my inner voice was actually hoping it was a bobcat but I certainly wasn't too optimistic that I would be so lucky to see a bobcat so closely. I simply don't have that kind of luck... not so far, anyway...

This floating blob was making its way toward uninhabited land just a stone's throw away from our house... this blob-like floating thing seemed to be changing direction and being more deliberate than a floating log would be. Sure enough, what we originally thought was a log stepped up on the rocks... it was black... it was BIG... it was a bear!

Then Sheila and I started imagining different scenarios... Imagine if we were out on our kayaks and this thing swam up to us? What if he tried getting into the kayak to get out of the water? What if we went over to him to see what that log-looking thing was and we suddenly realized it is a bear? We'd be kayaking as fast as possible in the opposite direction while saying, "Holy sh*t!"

Now this is real 'wild' wildlife!

I already have some decent photos of loons. I'll add some photos of loons in another blog entry later. I think we might have a pair of loons nesting right near the house... next to the area where the bear climbed up out of the lake. I should be able to get some really beautiful loon photos.

The wildlife seems to be abundant and highly active this year. It should be a great photography experience!