Bright and still

The creek is a mirror and the trees that still have leaves are glowing above and below.

By lunch, both the temperature and the breeze have come up. A male kingfisher visited the dock. A pelican splashed down beside it, startling the kingfisher off. Clouds of black birds maneuvered overhead. A merganser pair paddled upstream. Bees are still harvesting rosemary nectar. And I think I hear a grasshopper.

Chickadees can't count. As I was sitting on the patio, with no birds stirring, Kathleen came up to me and then walked away. Immediately the chickadees started flying to the feeder as though I had disappeared.

Toward dusk the water was again still. A grebe went diving and popping up all the way up the creek. Great numbers of cormorants were flying to wherever they roost, some over the dam, some upstream, and some down. Crickets got loud as the sun set.