Summer’s End

Our first year in Chignik Lake, we attempted to cram ourselves into a tiny, one-bedroom apartment. We were soon spilling out of it, prompting a move to a slightly larger home. In addition to offering more square footage, our present place serves as a terrific wildlife viewing blind. Situated just 30 yards from the lake, we’ve seen 13 mammalian species from our living room/dining room windows. Add to that loons, ducks, falcons, eagles, cranes, snipe, passerines and other avian species, and the view out the picture windows is kind of like having the National Geographic Channel on 24/7. When the Coho are in, we can actually see them from our place, prompting us on several occasions to drop dinner forks, pull fly rods down from their wall pegs and have a go at the migrating salmon. At night, sometimes ambling bears pass by so close that we can hear their paws crunching in the sand outside our open bedroom window.

But the view from the windows of our first place was also lovely, and although it didn’t offer the wildlife viewing our current home offers, a very cute, high-spirited ermine once ran right over the toe of my boot as I entered the mud room. Here was the window view on August 15, 2016, our first month at The Lake. I was just beginning to get into more serious photography at the time and made several technical mistakes in composing this picture. Yet, it remains one of our favorites. (Nikon D4, 17-35mm f/2.8, 1/320 at f/9.0, 17mm, ISO 1600)