The Foggy Finger At Rattray Marsh
When Esther and I visited Rattray Marsh in Mississauga, last September, we were delighted to discover an extensive network of boardwalks waiting to lead us around and through the bog.
At every turn of the path, a new, lush vista of green thrilled us. Bridges carried us beside and over the little stream.
One moment we were in the midst of the marsh, the next, to our surprise, in ancient forest. And then we found ourselves near Lake Ontario.
Of course, I launched the drone several times to capture images of the intersecting boardwalk, stream, forest, and marsh .
We were so pleased with that trip that in late October we ventured there again. The park felt familiar, but many of the trees looked very different, the maples in particular now red, yellow, and gold.
This image taken that day roughly duplicates the one above, but the feelings the two photos evoke couldn’t be more different, one luxuriant in shades of green, the other offering a warmer, more varied palette.
Unchanged, though, were those eternal silver ghosts, trees long ago drowned by wet soil around their roots, still standing, keeping watch over the forest.
On the second occasion, it was news of shoreline fog that drew us to the marsh. As soon I could find a good takeoff spot on the boardwalk, I flew the drone up high and directed it toward the lake. The bank of haze along the edge was immediately, dramatically, visible.
This was advection fog, warm moist air pushed over a cooler surface that caused its unseen vapour to condense on microscopic particles of dust, transformed into tiny visible droplets of water. The dust itself may have been invisible, but its moist passengers revealed its presence.
We often think of fog as a menace, causing terrible highway pileups, making the west and east coasts cold and damp, endangering everyone out on the water.
But on this sunny October day, fog was simply awe-inspiring, lying along the north shore of the lake like a fat duvet.
This was a cloud so low it was touching the water, its white mass obscuring the view of the lake and part of the sky. It was moving, but so slowly you could hardly register it.
Pointing inland from the lake like a foggy finger, the mist crept across the wet marsh toward a residential area. As it reached inland, it met warmer air and the droplets of water turned back into vapour, the mist ultimately disappearing.
But along the shoreline, with its sharper contrast of temperatures, the bank of fog continued to lie, hardly moving, for hours.
Looking inland, the drone captured the delightful contrast of autumn colours illuminated by bright sunlight. In that moment, you might never guess that the shore remained cool, overcast, and damp.
