The light was gone by noon.

It had been nice, really nice, actually, for most of the morning but now that the sun was nearly directly overhead and smoke was getting thicker in the Bow River valley, it was time to pull the pin.

But what a gorgeous morning it had been.

I find it very easy — maybe a bit too easy — to get up early at this time of year. With the glow of the pre-dawn sky starting to brighten my bedroom window at around 4 a.m. I’m already two-thirds awake by the time any alarm I have set ever goes off.

So even though I had it set for 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, by a quarter to, I was already out the door.

It was cool and calm but not particularly quiet as I parked by a slough on the city’s eastern limits. The sun wasn’t due to crack the horizon until just before 5:30 but traffic was already starting to build and added its din to the calls of the birds on the water.

Avocets and marbled godwits peeped and chirped as they hunted for breakfast along the shore. Out on the water, tinted orange by the approaching sun, a momma mallard swam along with her brood. A couple of Franklin’s gulls flew by.

The first red arc of the rising sun appeared right around 5:25, a little bit late thanks to a bank of clouds off on the eastern horizon. But it didn’t take long until the full disc was in the sky and casting a bright glow across the water. One of the godwits along the shore in front of me decided to splash around and sent ripples of alternating blue and gold across the pond’s surface. Further out, grebes and ducks paddled across the ever-brightening water while the gulls flew out to the fields close by. Could have sworn I heard a coyote but with the traffic churning by, it was hard to tell.

Eastward now, into the dawning day. At another slough not farther along there were blackbirds saying good morning among the cattails. The redwing blackbird I photographed only had one leg but that didn’t seem to be holding him back. A yellow-headed cousin perched on a piece of broken fence. I could see his breath in the morning’s 6 C chill.

The sun rose higher as I headed south toward the Bow River but it didn’t seem to get much brighter. I’d noticed in the wide-angle picture I’d taken back at the first slough there was a brownish haze along the horizon. Smoke from the northern fires? Probably. I found a momma moose and her new baby just south of Indus and though the sun was out, the light had a tinge to it.

But coming down the hill to the McKinnon Flats boat launch, I could really see it, a blue-ish haze filling the valley. And I could smell it. This wasn’t morning mist, not entirely, anyway. It was smoke.

It did seem suspended above the valley floor, though. Down closer to the river the smell was gone and looking straight up as I tried to get pictures of the goldeneye ducks and mergansers flying back and forth from the river to their nests in the trees — yes, some ducks nest in trees — the sky above was clear.

But the smoke still dimmed a lot of the light. Trying to photograph the baby starlings peeking out of a hole in an old cottonwood, I had to hold the camera pretty steady to get a picture in the low light.

It was brighter down at the Carseland weir. By now it was nearly 8 a.m. and the sun was getting higher all the time. From the top of the escarpment I could see the shadows it cast from the thin clouds leaving traces through the smoke filling in the valley. The light had a yellowish cast, too. Which, although I feel guilty saying it as the fires continue their path of destruction, I kinda like.

It was slightly less smoky down along the river, maybe a bit of inversion going on, but the smoke-warmed light softened the bright whites of the pelican feathers. There was maybe a hundred of them on the water above the weir, some roosting along the shore or on driftwood out in the current.

A platoon of them were swimming along and stopping here and there to turn tail-up as they scooped at fish in the water below. Fun to watch as they swim in a group and then suddenly stop to communally dip for fish. Clever strategy.

And the fishing must have been pretty good. As I watched the pelicans swimming, more kept flying in to join them. Cormorants joined them on the hunt, too. The blue herons trying to be stealthy along the shore mostly gave up and headed to other parts of the river as the pelicans swam by.

Away from the water, the riverine forest was filled with bird song. Lovely to hear even if a lot of it was drowned out by the roar of equipment firing up at the gravel pit across the river. I managed to spot a little least flycatcher out on a limb and the bright orange feathers of an oriole. A lone mule deer paused as it walked among the willows and chokecherries.

Cottonwood fluff was everywhere. It covered most of the foliage in the shady spots on the valley floor and added a fuzzy coat to the roses — the smoky light really brought out their colour — and berry bushes. The spider silk strung between the plants was heavy with it.

Out in the open it had snagged on the last remaining wolf willow blossoms — such a sweet scent — and the ripening saskatoons. Loose pods dropped from the branches clunked on the truck’s roof as I slowly idled along. The tree branches above were white with it and drifts of fluff lay in the grass along the road.

I know some people find it annoying but I love the stuff. So, naturally, I had to flop down on the ground and explore it a bit.

Up close you can really see how delicate the fluff is. The individual strands are maybe half the diameter of a human hair and with the help of close-focusing lenses you can tell they are nearly transparent. It’s only their accumulation that makes them look white.

Even more fascinating are the cottonwood seeds. They are so tiny that it would take four of them laid end to end to equal the length of a small ant. I know this because I found some little ants wandering through this miniature fluff forest. They seemed like they were lost.

Hard to believe these tiny seeds have the potential to grow into something as gigantic as a cottonwood tree. Yeah, I love the fluff!

Now dusty and as fuzzy as a caterpillar I picked myself up and got back in the truck. A breeze had hustled up and it was rattling the leaves and sending the fluff flying. It was also carrying smoke down to the valley floor and I could smell it as I idled along.

But the day had warmed up, too. The morning chill was gone and the bugs and bees were getting more lively. I stopped to watch a very colourful bumblebee rooting around in a patch of roses and as I got back into the truck I could see there was something dangling from my hat brim. It was a tiny spider attached to a strand of silk that I must have blundered into. Both spiders and cottonwoods disperse the same way, riding the wind on gossamer strings.

It was getting close to 11 now and the sun was high overhead. The smoke took away some of its harshness and softened the shadows a bit but the silky light of early day was waning quickly. But there was one more place I wanted to check out along the river so I headed upstream from the weir.

The Legacy Island boat launch should be renamed to something like Birdlandia. I see such a variety of winged citizens every time I go there, no matter what the season. Today, though, I couldn’t make it quite as far as usual.

Normally, I would have no problem crossing flowing water but today the stream that separates the island from the north side of the river was running pretty full. I would be bumper-deep if I tried to cross. Again, not normally a problem.

But the road gets pretty steep on the far side and I wasn’t sure I’d have the traction to scale it. Something with a little bit more ground clearance or a longer wheelbase, no problem. But my little truck has neither. So I parked within photo distance of the water and, instead of going to the birds, I waited for them to come to me.

I could hear birds all around me, pheasants squawking, sparrows chirping, robins, warblers, wrens and thrushes filling in the chorus. Pelicans flew by overhead, dwarfing an eagle that flew by a few minutes later.

Birds were flying down to the water, too. Sparrows flew in for a drink, robins landed next to blackbirds and waded in to bathe. A chickadee made a very brief appearance. On the far side of the little stream a sparrow tackled a stonefly that had just emerged from the water.

And then, in front of me, a flash of bright yellow. A male goldfinch flew to the shore and started to drink, only to look up in what had to be annoyance as a house sparrow flew in. Goldie chased it off and went back to the water. Those little guys don’t like to share.

The light was getting really harsh now. The goldfinch was screamingly bright in my viewfinder and even the cedar waxwing with its soft tans and yellows was hard to expose properly. And the smoke which had softened things so well earlier in the day was now just a blue-ish miasma that flattened everything.

But it had been a wonderful morning, nearly seven hours of gorgeous light. Some folks might say evening light is the nicest and, with that long twilight we get at this time of year, they ain’t wrong.

But for me, it will always be morning’s glow that I prefer.

You’ve gotta get up pretty early for it.

But first light is always the best.