Silvery Gray Day at the Lake

It was beautiful at the lake the other day--lots of scaups and coots, distant geese and ducks, a big bird too high to tell if it was the eagle I suspected...but looking at my feet, I found this perfect gar skull (what a LOT of needle-sharp teeth!) and a butter-yellow dandelion.

I don't know who made a meal of the gar--one of the herons, an eagle? But I found bits of it scattered halfway across the road.

There are a lot of types of gar, the largest reaching 300 lbs!  This little guy was either a smaller species or a baby...the skull was only 4 1/2" long by 1" wide.  You can read more on wikipedia
or for more than you EVER wanted to know about one our Missouri gar, the longnose, you can read HERE.

The monster fish have beautiful scales that some people dye and use to make jewelry.

New overlook at Cooley Lake

Well, wow...I was out driving yesterday, painting here and there, and came up the back road on the loess bluffs overlooking the Missouri River bottoms and the old oxbow that is now Cooley Lake, owned by the Missouri Department of Conservation. I normally go right for the lake to see the eagles, swans, geese, ducks, and whatever else might be in residence or passing through--this day I took the high road and was DELIGHTED to find a new observation tower on the highest hill. I've sketched and painted on that hill dozens of times, but being able to get just that much higher--12 feet or so--was incredible. The 360-degree view was exhilarating.

I saw bald eagles, hawks, and thousands of geese--flying by BELOW me. Wow...yes, I know I said that already. But wow...

Cooley Lake Wildlife Area and the Orcs

5 bald eagles, both mature and young, thousands of geese, and one bunch of Orcs.

I thought about painting all the bright colors--Cheetos orange and red, the black and lime and orange of the energy drinks, but I didn't want them to look bright and cheerful. In this context they were ugly, and that's how I painted them.

This is at Cooley Wildlife Area, a Missouri Department of Conservation Site and an old oxbow of the nearby Missouri River...

Cooley Lake

It got warm--well, 45 or so--and sunny on Sunday afternoon, so I headed out to the lake to sketch...again...

There were only a few Canada geese in the sky, in the late afternoon, but the light and the long, blue shadows were gorgeous...

It was muzzle-loader hunting season, so I stayed near the lake where I could see miles in every direction...to much action!

Late afternoon, October

The colors are beginning to really glow, in mid-October. The loess bluffs are their usual mosaic of greens, oranges, reds and yellows, but this time my eye was caught by the long shadows cast by the broken clouds and that intense light! We'd had clouds for days, so when they began to break up and I saw the trees light up, I needed to be out there.

The huge leaf is from one of the waterlilies that now choke the old oxbow lake, once part of the Missouri River. It's succumbing to the natural progression of eutrophication. Here's more on the process whereby lakes eventually become land. And HERE is a graphic that shows that process clearly.

The rich farmland of the Missouri River bottoms is an agricultural treasure, worth its weight in gold--or almost! There are fewer homes here now, due to flooding in recent years, and more land is given over to flood control, public use, and farming. This area was under water in the flood of 1993, but in the natural pattern of things, the resulting silt and mud that was deposited serves to enrich the soil. (At least if there's not too much pollution and heavy metals involved.)

This image is from Jefferson City, a bit downstream, but the area I frequent near Cooley Lake was as inundated. It was a sobering sight to see this vast inland sea where the state highway used to be!

I've drawn and sketched at this wildlife area many, many times--now owned by the Missouri Department of Conservation, it's an amazing place to explore.

From the MDC's information page: "Cooley Lake CA in Clay County covers 1,348 acres, including 335-acre Cooley Lake. Riverlands purchases added 310 acres to this area. It has 6.4 miles of hikeable river levee and a half-mile hiking trail. Walk-in fishing is available along a mile of river frontage. The area's boat ramp and privies are handicapped-accessible. Waterfowl, shorebirds, songbirds and birds of prey can be viewed from the area's four parking lots."

If you're anyplace in the area of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, I recommend a visit!