I first noticed a single tern gliding above an island of reeds.
As I drifted closer, more birds appeared. What seemed from a distance like a handful of Common Terns were actually a thriving colony tucked into the grasses.
A few squawks. A few birds lifted into the air. Then Dozens.
First they hovered above the grasses. Then the squadron moved over the water towards me.
For a brief frenzied moment the sky filled with motion and sound… and bird poop bombs!
I was under an aerial attack! Apparently the island of reeds was the nesting site for this colony of terns – and I had become a bogey on their radar.
I quickly reversed course, glad that I and my camera had been spared a direct hit.
A photographer may find oneself in jeopardy. Oh, but that photo!
My favorite bog after the heat and humidity of a summer day.
I arrive at the bog just as the sun reaches tree tops of a tamarack island. For a brief moment the light turns golden and sharp. The sun highlights grasses, throwing long warm waves across the sedges, and bursts into a sunstar through the trees. Brilliant rays reach across shadowed grasses beckoning my attention.
There is a quiet excitement in these moments. Frogs begin chanting. A few birds offer their final songs of the day. Crickets are tuning their instruments in the grasses. The orchestra is warming up.
I place the tripod and camera in the grass. Sipping coffee, I dissolve into the sounds of the bog and surrounding woods. Behind me, somewhere in the distance, a barred owl calls.
The day’s heat surrenders to the coming night. The landscape softens and the edges of the bog blur into margins. Twilight deepens.
Cool fragrant air brushes my skin as the bog starts to breathe.
High in the western sky, first lights of evening appear. Venus and Jupiter emerge from a transparent blue sky. Above them, on a diagonal, are Pollux and Castor, stars of Gemini.
The waiting begins – for what I came for.
A few minutes pass. Then a flicker. A single point of yellow-green fluorescence sparks among the sedges.
A firefly! Then another, and another.
Soon dozens of tiny lanterns are twinkling above the bog, answering the stars overhead. As if on cue, the fog arrives. It rises first in the distance, like apparitions hovering above the bog, then slowly drifts across the grasses towards me.
For a brief moment, everything comes together. The last glow of sunset. The first lights from planets and stars. The flickering lanterns of fireflies. The slow tide of fog. The sounds of nature.
And here I am, with a camera and a cup of coffee. And enough presence to witness it. How fortunate. Earth is an amazing place.
Two evenings prior, the Trumpeter Swans were just distant white shapes at the far end of the lake. One atop an old beaver lodge while its mate stood watch nearby. They never wandered from that corner, and the Hooded Mergansers became the evening’s stars.
Last night started slowly. No sign of mergansers and the swans had not moved. I spent most of the evening marveling at clouds, glowing pink in fading light, drifting across the horizon. A snapping turtle crashing through vegetation briefly convinced me a black bear was approaching.
As evening faded, frogs and birds began their evening chorus. Perched nearby, a Common Yellowthroat emerged as the lead singer. And one of the swans left the beaver lodge.
Slowly, deliberately, it crossed the length of the lake heading directly towards me. It stopped at the shoreline just twenty feet from me. For nearly an hour, as light slowly faded, the swan moved silently through the emerging grasses.
In the final embers of nightfall, its mate called out with a single lonely honk from across the lake. The swan paused, looked up, and turned towards the nesting site. I had stayed longer than planned, reluctant to startle the swan and deeply grateful for the unexpected visitor.
Sitting in silence, a moment greater than time - Truth reveals itself
Just across the road from home lies a small, glacial remnant, pothole lake. It is shallow with lily pads and bordered with reeds and cattails. From a simple ground blind, I recently spent a spring evening watching female Hooded Mergansers tend to the tasks of motherhood along the nearby shoreline.
With crest raised and eyes alert, a female Hooded Merganser surveys the shallows along this pothole lake.
The mother merganser trails closely behind her duckling as they cross the sunlit lake. For the next few weeks, all of life’s challenges will be met together.
A Deeper Perspective
While watching Hooded Mergansers from the blind, my attention wandered to the opposite shore. A deer emerged from the grass. And a Trumpeter Swan patrolled the shallows, keeping a close eye on his mate nested on top of an old beaver lodge.
A great evening spent on the little unnamed lake across the road.
All images captured on a Nikon Z6lll camera paired with a Nikkor Z 180-600mm lens.
She* never took her eyes off me. Waiting patiently while I fumbled with camera gear. I stole quick glances over my shoulder while wrestling the long lens onto the Nikon body. Finally, I stepped away from the truck and raised the camera towards the Barred Owl.
She was perched on an oak limb just a few dozen feet beyond my campsite, untroubled by my presence. She never broke her pose as the shutter clicked away.
Along the boardwalk at Canal Park, Jennifer and I walked beside Lake Superior. The evening began beneath a blanket of gray clouds, a monotone pallet of steel and slate. A freighter passed quietly through the entrance breakwaters, its long black hull matched the dull landscape.
But Lake Superior rarely remains the same for long.
As sunset approached, a thin seam of clear sky opened between the moody clouds above and the dark basalt ridges rising behind Duluth. Golden light spilled across the harbor turning lake and sky in to a pastel painting. At that moment, the thousand-foot freighter American Spirit approached the entrance lights, its weathered hull catching the last warmth of the day. For a few fleeting minutes, it all came together in a scene that seemed far more dramatic than the overcast evening from which it began.
Fortunately, I had my camera kit with me.
Evening light settles over Lake Superior as the freighter American Spirit approaches the Duluth Harbor entrance.
Lighthouses and bow of the freighter glow in warm evening sun against the blues of water and sky.
All 1004 feet (306.22 meters) of the American Spirit glides between navigation lights of the Duluth Harbor entrance.
Details of the American Spirit
Length: 1,004 feet
Beam (width): 105 feet
Depth: 50 feet
Built: 1978 by the American Shipbuilding Co, Lorain, OH
A billion years ago, tectonic activity tried to split our continent in half. The Midcontinent Rift ripped open the heart of North America, creating immense volcanic flows that spread across the land as dark basalt.
Starting two millions years ago, glaciers advanced and retreated across the region, grinding stone and gouging valleys (including what is now Lake Superior). They left behind rugged basalt cliffs and ledges that define the North Shore today.
The Gooseberry River tumbles over these ancient basalt rocks in stair-stepped cascades shaped by volcanic activity and ice. Every spring, rainwater and snowmelt surge down the gorge, and for a period of time the river returns to a wilder and more powerful version of itself.
Upper Falls – Spring runoff and sheets of ice surge through basalt ravines of the North Shore in a thunderous roar and mist.
Whiskey and Water
The color of the water is part of the story. Far upstream from the falls, the Gooseberry River drains countless wetlands, cedar swamps, and tamarack bogs. The decaying leaves, mosses, peat, and needles release tannins in to the slow moving waters. These tannins act like tea, staining the river in shades described as amber, bronze, caramel, root beer, and whiskey.
Middle Falls – For a few weeks, the falls transform into a flowing curtain of bronze and white. Geometric blocks of ice with a sapphire glow cling precariously to the rocks.
Go Deeper
To learn more about Gooseberry Falls State Park, visit the website by clicking HERE.
There are mornings on Lake Superior when fog reduces the world to its simplest forms. Here at Two Harbors along Minnesota’s north shore, fog has turned the harbor into an abstract study in three parts.
A lone buoy glows in thick fog, while the breakwater light keeps watch beyond.
Along the breakwater, the world narrows to a small light fading into the mist.
A Great Lakes freighter moves along the North Shore of Minnesota. Its presence reduced to near silhouette in the early morning fog on Lake Superior. In the hush between water and sky, a low hum and trailing plume whisper of the power that moves steel and industry across these cold waters.
just another shape dissolving into the day
Gary Donaldson
“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”
