The leaves on our aspen trees are a mix of green and yellow, mornings are often frosty, and the bird feeder needs refilling every day. Transition to fall is underway and we’re making the most of it.
Trips to the Crooked are spaced weekly, between an occasional rain storm. It’s easy to get on the river just before the sun crests the canyon walls and triggers a morning caddisfly hatch.
Layers are mandatory, but our warm sweaters are folded away by mid-morning. This also is about the time Tip is suggesting it’s time to have some snacks.
There is a day use area fifteen minutes upstream from Prineville that is a regular stop and these last few weeks we’ve mostly been setting up our chairs there.
A ‘Raft’ of mergansers has been in the area for most of those days.
Occasionally we see the osprey. Often he perches on a snag that dominates the opposite bank. This day the bare branches hold a heron, briefly, but no osprey.
Some time in mid-summer an SUV spotted JQ adjusting focus on a telephoto lens and pulled over to chat . . . photog to photog.
The gist of that conversation was there’s a Mountain Goat that inhabits the top reaches of the basalt columns on the far side of the river. Since then we’ve scanned the canyon wall, but never spotted him.
A week ago a fisherman chatted with Jack and besides sharing fly pattern information, also pointed out that the goat was on a ledge, over there.
It’s no easy tasks to direct someones attention to a small white dot hunkered down on a rock face that is identical to the hundreds of other outcroppings and a mile away.
But I got the general location. Once back at the car, with the aid of binoculars and JQ’s Telephoto lens we located a mound of white fur nestled in the rocks.
With a better idea of where to look and what to look for this week, we tried again. Pretty quickly we found him standing, exposed with the morning light making it easier to get a photo.
Fall continues to offer a smattering of rainy days amid stretches of clear sky, making it easy to pick out a good river day . . . or whatever outing we feel like. This is by far our favorite time of year.