Sweeney Lake

A last minute decision to change from hiking to kayaking put me on a new waterway up in Oneida county. Sweeney Lake is undeveloped and at almost 200 acres, one of the larger ones within a reasonable distance to drive. It’s popular for fishing though and I found 4 boat trailers already parked when I got there. They don’t cause any real trouble though, and other than the occasional racing from one end to the other, they didn’t bother me much and I had some friendly chats with the anglers.

Whenever I paddle a wild or semi-wild lake, I’m drawn to the shoreline. Human activity presents itself in different ways other than buildings and lawns and so an edge left to its own devices has a quality that’s hard to describe. So here’s some photos instead –

That big dead tree surrounded by vibrant birch leaves, struck me the minute I saw it. A landowner might have cut that tree even if it wasn’t interfering with anything so finding these old snags is always interesting. Many were all the way down into the water and were havens for late season dragonflies and spiders.

This leaf caught in a dead conifer caught my attention while I was studying the shoreline. Those colors are real – I think it’s a Red Maple leaf and so when it turns in the fall we get these pinks, blues and purples.

This next little scene took me a while to figure out how best to shoot. I tried different distances from it and different angles, but I liked this one for the larger story. The rocks have such presence because of the mass and solidity, but the curl of birch bark stands out nicely. I was put in mind of a person receiving a message or letter and either losing it accidentally or throwing it away. Either happenstance would be emotional, but in very different ways. Yeah, it’s reading into a totally natural event, but that’s how humans work – we love to tell stories and can find them in almost everything we encounter, even if not a single person had anything to do with it. I went for a more sombre presentation with this one, warming up the white balance a little and de-saturating the greens somewhat. I do still debate with myself about leaving that bit of water reflection at the bottom or cutting it off, leaving just those two rocks, but I kind of like the way it frames the scene, so I left it in.

More rocks on the shoreline and this time wow – a giant split boulder! Again, I spent quite a bit of time with two different cameras and lenses to get different orientations. This one though was isolated well enough and switching to monochrome eliminated some bright patches of green that were distracting and would be hard to eliminate. Blue bird skies aren’t good for a lot of things, but the direct sun is great for highlighting textures and shapes and I quite like how the thin tangle of empty branches offsets the heavy mass of the rock. As luck would have it, the wind was relatively calm and provided me a decent reflection.

Further along in my exploration, I found more birch bark to play with. Not all of the compositions worked, mostly because of distracting reflections, but this one did and I kind of like it. Wish I could have stacked or gotten more in focus, but it wasn’t in the cards.

There wasn’t a ton of color in the trees, but there were pockets and this little scene caught my attention for a while. Again with the two cameras and lenses, but this one was the one that showcased what attracted me in the first place. That pop of red! The big boulder and the leaning tree with the backlit leaves and needles. You can’t quite tell, but the rock is taller than I am in the kayak and was warm to the touch and covered in lichens. You can also see how high the lake usually is by the line of moss.

And then a bit further along the bank, what do my wondering eyes behold?! An otter!

Since I’ve never found an otter in a lake before it was quite a surprise. Given that this is a drainage lake and the water was pretty low, it might have swum in earlier and just stuck around. Since the fishing is good, maybe it likes it and will stay. Future visits will be interesting if I find it, or companions, again. Very cool though and they’re always nice to encounter. They’re naturally curious and playful so they always spy-hop and check me out whenever they see me in the red boat.

So that was my outing there. Even though it’s not as secluded or inaccessible as some place, it was enjoyable. We’ll see if I can get my lazy butt out the door for another post.