Author: Raina P

I call them shadow windows, when heavy glare on water is broken by a shadow on the surface. If the sun is low in the sky the water column might be illuminated all the way down, with just the surface darkened enough to allow clear viewing. If I can get close enough to a body of water I will often make one with my hands. In the window below this log a few minnows kept rising. For food at the surface? For food on the underside of the log? As a mating display? The fathead minnows are in full banded colors but I don’t yet have an ID on the this group, or any of the others.

I have always been enamored with water because it is another world. I have always been enamored with creeks and ponds because they are miniaturized worlds, but in physical scale only. This minnow approached the surface with as much grandeur as any cutthroat or west slope rainbow. It was a mature bull shark coming up from 25 feet in clear water. When they would turn and sink—sometimes darting—back down I’d lose sight of them around the 6-inch mark. Such a small pool of water—several bathtubs worth below a leaky beaver dam. I try to come down every evening, picking my way through the tall ferns, to perch bank-side and see who appears in the little portals.

Little clumps of sedge all up and down the sides of the creek that are usually little rooted islands this time of year, all high and dry now instead.

One of the things about living far from the equator is that much like an actor whose big monologue has come some places get spot-lit for just a small part of the year before receeding into the background. Some places get the super glow for two small windows—when the sun’s on the way out and when the sun’s on the way in—and others just rise slowly to one great crescendo, like this spot. This section of this creek has a few short straightaways that all orient in more or less the same direction and they are all afire during evenings in the month of June.