“Seasons turn and bring the change, the shifting of the weather vane”—from the song The Breath Between by David Francey
On the prairies, big bluestem panicles have emerged. Corn tassels have grown out and, later each afternoon, cicadas call. Swallows gather into flocks and perch on utility wires along country roads. These are some of the signs I look for every July, of summertime passing, even as the longest day of the year remains a fresh memory.
As I opened the entrance to our cabin’s driveway, I heard a distant dickcissel calling; and across the road, barn swallows and American goldfiches flew over a prairie planting with blooming gray-headed coneflowers and bee balm. Through the trees, I saw Quiver Lake; during a typical July, I would expect low water with dispersing herons, egrets, and migrating shorebirds on the mud flats, which in some years can be quite extensive. But recent heavy rains throughout the watershed have caused the Illinois River to rise, flooding over backwaters connected to the river.
Quiver Lake with a green ash struggling to survive against
flooding, drought, wind damage, and the emerald ash borer.
Songs of breeding birds were less apparent than earlier in the month, but as I stood on the bluff edge overlooking the river valley, a tufted titmouse’s song drew my attention, and for a short while I listened to a yellow-throated vireo until the bird went silent. From the direction of the lake, I heard red-headed woodpeckers calling and growling at each other, and down below, flood waters surrounded the bases of green ash, black willow, and silver maple trees that stood close to the lake’s normal shoreline. My first thought was that it would be easy to launch my new canoe, chained to a tree above the historic high-water line. The adventuresome part of me said to seize the moment; but the old man inside countered with: It’s already a hot, humid day, destined to become hotter and probably too windy for canoeing. Another time, I thought; but a person cannot say that too often until another time is out of reach.
When I climbed down the bluff, I saw that grape vines had grown over most of the driftwood left over from previous floods. Vines and flood debris, including large snags, would completely cover our lakefront if I did not clear things away every so often; this year I had been negligent. There was plenty of work, which would have to wait for a cooler day; but the vines were winning. Then I determined through careful consideration that reading a book in the shade while being cooled by slight breezes off the lake was the best option. Or staring off into the distance, watching weather develop as clouds take shape, change, dissipate, or gather into isolated summer storms.
Reading a novel might be looked upon as a form of escapism, but in doing so, I try not to lose awareness of my surroundings, even slight movements, sounds, and subtle details. Earlier in the month, while lost in the meld of mind and book, when the lake level was lower and slowly heading downward, I saw in my peripheral vision a soft-shelled turtle surface twenty or thirty feet beyond the shoreline seeps; great egrets walked in shallow waters on the other side of the lake stalking fish, and as I watched the egrets, a Caspian tern, the first of the summer, dove several times into the water for a fish before flying toward nearby Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge. About a week before, I was surrounded by thousands of mayflies in the air, and then I saw others clinging to every piece of vegetation along the lakeshore. As I passed by, most would take flight at once, many landing on me; and even when I sat calmly against a large tree, they were drawn to me; so, annoyed, I left the beach area for another day.
Mayflies on grape vines at Quiver Lake.
On this latest visit, though, I saw no mayflies or remnants of mayflies. But there were new piles of flood debris and stranded duckweed in rows parallel to the shoreline, giving evidence of how high flood waters had only recently been; some of the wood had been broken up into small pieces by previous wave action, looking very much like mulch one would buy at a garden center. The entrepreneur in me wondered if it would be possible to gather up this free “river mulch” and sell it at a 100% profit: natural and organic, healthy and chemical free. So the idea is out there now, for anyone with the initiative.
As I walked along thinking about river mulch, a spotted sandpiper called and took flight from a nearby partially sunken tree branch. When the bird flew away from shore, wings beating in their typical vibrating manner, it was joined by another of the same species, possibly a breeding pair that could have been nesting nearby. Then a killdeer called and flew from the bluff side of the lake toward open water and downriver out of sight, searching for open ground for foraging, with or without mud flats.
Later I heard a calling eastern kingbird and saw it perched on an ash tree’s dead branch; the large branch extended over the water, and every once in a while, the kingbird left its perch and flew over the lake to catch a flying insect high above, and then return to the same tree. I recalled earlier seeing a red-headed woodpecker performing a similar flycatching maneuver, but in a more awkward manner than the kingbird, flying after an insect one way and then another way and then another before making its catch. I’ve always thought it strange for a woodpecker to engage in such an activity, which the species does not appear well suited for. As I contemplated returning to the cabin, two great egrets flew over the flooded willow forest just beyond the other side of the lake; they were heading toward the wildlife refuge and would be searching for shallower waters.
Conditions along the river and its floodplain are always changing, and that is what makes them interesting, even as the yearly cycle is predictable in a general sense. So I look forward to the coming mud flats over the rest of summer and shorebirds from the Arctic, along with migrating osprey before too long, and then higher water levels in the fall with the waterfowl migration. Autumn colors, bare trees, and then snow and the shortest day.
The years go by as they will, lengthening daylight for half of the year, progressively shorter daylight the other half, with time moving faster as I age. And although those shorter days begin after the summer solstice in June, it’s not until the middle of July that I truly sense the transition.
Quiver Lake seeps exposed as lake levels drop with the Illinois River, August 10, 2024.
Quiver Lake on August 18, 2024 with great egrets foraging in the
shallow lake waters (a sweep of the binoculars from north to south
yielded 47 great egrets).