A field journal kept on weekend walks around one small northern lake. Birds, weather, and whatever the water is doing.
A thin skin of ice along the reeds this morning, gone by noon. The goldeneyes have moved out to the middle where it stays open. Heard a single whooper swan overhead but never saw it through the cloud.
Three skeins of cranes went over in twenty minutes, all heading south-west and calling the whole way. The birch leaves are mostly down now and the path along the east shore is easier to see.
Not a bird walk at all. Chanterelles under the spruce on the north slope, more than I've seen in years. The lake was flat and grey and very quiet.