gun shy

The sky was overcast. Shades of grey. So, too, the water.

Nanabijou, when I first came over the overpass, was invisible, behind a grey sheet of sky, but as I walked along the shore it materialized faintly, as if through a gauze. Or a nylon stocking. A faint outline. Barely there. I read once that this is how newborn babies see. As if through a veil.

If you crouched slightly by the dried grasses and the eaglehead driftwood, the water was gun metal grey. Walking along the shore, past the first lookout, I stopped to watch the mallards paddling contentedly, oblivious to any grey sensibility. The muskrat was still there, chewing her greens by the shore, a ball of fur. Stopped to scratch her ear with her hind leg. When she left with a deft glide, the mallards gleaned her leftovers.

This is the best I can do with my hand-me-down camera. I've been trying to get a 'nice' photo of the hooded mergansers. Our harbour is a way station on their path south from up north. They come here in the fall and hang around for a bit, then they're off to other climes.

Highly prized for meat, I think for as soon as I spy one, it is already far away from shore or with a blink of the eye, diving under water.

Shy of humans, all of who are presumed to be carrying a gun. So, I stand at the shore, sighing.