A Sunday Morning Walk

On this beautiful sunny morning, I decided to take the dog for an early morning walk. I live on a small bay off Lake Ontario so decided to drive the 3 km to the end of the road. From there I could walk through the sand dunes to Alexander Island. I say walk as it's no longer an island, but more of that later. As the lake is cooler than the air there was still some mist on the lake but the sun had burned it off through the dunes.

As I walked to the top of one of the dunes, Midnight and I could see out over the bay. The wind was still so the water was like glass with the shoreline mirrored in the water. There were  a small number of wood ducks resting before their flight further north. The wake of a beaver formed a "V"  as it swam slowly across the water. How I wished that I had put my camera in my pocket. All around the trees were full of song birds singing for a mate. Continuing through the dunes we made our way to the fields that are part of Alexander Island.


Although called an island it is no longer one as the dynamic beach has filled in one end of the bay to a width of a hundred metres or so and a length of a a couple of kilometres.. It is now attached to the main land at the west end, thus enclosing Pleasant Bay except for a small opening at the eastern end. Storms and winds often fill in this small opening until the the water in the bay supersaturates the sand and it begins to literally flow into the main lake. Soon there will be a 20 foot wide opening about 5/6 feet deep allowing the bay to again flow into the lake. The name Alexander Island remains from pioneer days though.

From the island we turned back along the beach. Through the mist we could hear the squawks of geese off in the distance and gradually a flight of about a thousand Canada geese emerged over head. After this three more large flights emerged, each formed in a constantly changing "V" as the lead goose was replaced and the flight continued it's northward journey.  As I turned to follow the flights high in the sky there was the glint of a jet with a white vapour trail on it's way to Toronto. Humans and birds sharing the sky on their individual journeys.

The main lake was so still only small ripples lapping on the beach. The dog went for a swim so I found a stick with which we played fetch in the water till he got bored and "lost" the stick. We continued to the car and as we drove home, more cars were arriving to enjoy the day. No longer would Midnight and I be the sole owners of the sun, sand and sounds.

To give you the idea of how many geese are in one flight this is a picture from a couple of weeks ago when a flight was refueling on the bay in front of my place.

JR