Snapshot: The lake at dusk

[pegkerr]

Last night I was driving Delia to her Girl Scout meeting, and we drove past Lake Hiawatha shortly after sunset. I glanced over at the lake and exclaimed, "Oh, look, girls." The ice is starting to form on the lake, hard enough to cover the water, but still thin enough to reflect the sky. Directly overhead the color was fading blue-to-black, but the horizon was still bright apricot from the sun's fiery death. The ice reflected the same apricot light around the edge of the lake, but in the darkened center, huddled together, rested a flock of birds, blackened against the twilit-reflecting ice, like scraps of night cut out of the sky. We went by too quickly for me to be sure: were they geese (is it too late for geese?), or crows? I couldn't tell. But the image stayed with me, long after I dropped Delia at her meeting, and so I share it now with you.

Comments

[beadslut.livejournal.com]

We have geese all over the campus here, either they are stupid as can be, or they like the climate. I'm going with stupid.

I never ever saw sunsets like the one you describe until I moved to Minnesota, they still take my breath away.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Had you read this yet? Sort of off topic for a reply to this wonderful bit of imagery you shared with us, but not completely.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

Wow- that's a beautiful article!

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's lovely! Thank you!

I feel just like that when I watch the girls doing karate.

[pameladean]

Yum. Thank you.

As for the geese, some populations of Canada geese stay here year round because people feed them; also, with a lot of species you get a situation where a group will summer in the very far north but winter in Minnesota, where the ones who summer in Minnesota skedaddle further south for the winter. But they look about the same to us.

P.

[lcohen]

how lovely. thank you for sharing it.