Whitefish Point. and memories

I’m sitting and writing on a cool (40F) morning thin king about friends and relatives in Canada who have been celebrating Thanksgiving, which is celebrated there on Columbus Day. In a way I am also celebrating the day. Thoughts and memories are flooding me at the moment. There are so many people that I want to get over to see, many that I haven’t seen in years. But for now I am going to sit back and enjoy Whitefish Point.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I like having time to enjoy a cup of coffee on the deck on sunny mornings.

Looking up from my coffee this is my view of the area.

After walking to the point, a half mile amble we decided to visit the hawk deck. This was built in 1994 and allowed the hawk-counter and hawk watchers to climb to the site with the best vantage point without doing any damage to the sand dunes.

The view south-west from the deck is spectacular. In the late 1970s and early 1980s these dunes were bare, no dune grasses or heather from erosion after years of bird-watchers walking over them. Once the deck was built the dunes started to recover and fill in with plants. Lots of memories here stretching back half a century.

The weekend has been filled with tourists as well as bird-watchers. When rare and unusual birds show up here birders flocks to the point. And since last Thursday there have been quite a few interesting birds. The most impressive was a Chestnut-collared Longspur.

In the fall tourists show up looking for peak fall colors and their last visits to Lake Superior in search of stones and in the evening the aurora.

Soon the tourists will be gone as the temperatures cool.

B.C. has once again published the perfect cartoon regarding color chasers.

More later…