It's that time of the year again, when the lake looks absolutely lovely and the weather starts to tempt us outside more often. The spring and fall are particularly breathtaking because the huge temperature difference between the air and the lake create what I call "mirages".
Technically, they aren't mirages, but the effect is similar. City lights from the Canadian shore, which is about 60 miles away, can be seen twinkling on the horizon. Normally, this is impossible due to the curve of the earth. But the temperature differential warps the light's travel, bending it just enough to give us a spectacular show. It's like a carnival, lighting up the lake with a magical twinkle, like a hundred shooting stars that never fade. Andrew calls them fairy lights. He says we only see them when the fairies are out playing tricks!
Although we're looking forward to the lake warming up enough for swimming, I'll be sad to see the fairy lights go . . . until fall.
The other high point of our week was a trip to Braddock Bay to celebrate Birds of Prey week. Arianna saw a kestrel up close, heard some loony bird stories, and enjoyed the playground. There's an owl watch tonight, but we had to get our own little chickadee to bed.
Kestrels are the smallest raptor, only the size of a robin, but preying on mice and large insects. We have a book called Fledgling about a family of kestrels who live in an old New York city building. We were surprised to find the illustrations in our book were very true representations of the bird.
We also heard about a family of peregrine falcons who nest in the Kodak building in Rochester. They set up a webcam so you can see them raising their babies. The URL is:
www.kodak.com/go/birdcam
That's all from our little nest!
Rebecca
http://www.thrivingbabies.com