Ripping Off Roberts on a Rainy Day

 What to do when a gloomy, rainy day sends your outdoor plans gang aft a-glay?*

Rip off Robert Service to tell a Tern Lake Mini-Story.    The story is in black, while my comments are in red.

A bunch of the ducks were soaking up rain at the Tern Lake Mud Bar saloon;

L-R:   Mallard, two scaups, two ring-necked ducks.

The wigeon that  handles the music-box was hitting a  soulful tune;

American wigeon.

Back of the bar, on a solo run, swam the muskrat known as McChew,

Note the muskrat swimming into the party from lower left.   McChew?   Hey, something had to rhyme with Dangerous Dan McGrew.

And watching his luck was a gussied-up duck, the ring-neck known as Lou.

Lou is topmost, center.   Note the fancy white lines on her bill and the drake's.

 

When out of the east, came some frightened teals, and into the din and the glare,

Green-winged teals fled before the eagle and landed close, but not close enough for my lens.

Right on their tails came a frightful eagle, hungry and loaded for bear.

He flew like a raptor, long beak and talons, hunting to fill his plate.

But the mew gulls arose and chased it away, to the other side of the lake,

((No photos of the gulls chasing away the eagle, because they were too far away for my lens and too fast for me.)

 

Where it landed in grass, much to its dismay, and the ducks slowly came back,

To the mud bar they loved, though chilly and wet, and only the sun did it lack.

From across the lake came a mournful wail, like haunting notes of a bassoon.

A cry that was calling for its mate to come back, to a solitary, lonesome loon.

This common loon returned without its mate.

* Speaking of ripping off Roberts, that "gang aft a-glay" in the first sentence?   Comes from a Scottish Robbie (Robbie) Burns poem called To a Mouse, 1785, and means "often go wrong.).