A great morning

Another one of those early mornings that makes you feel up and ready to go. The moon was two days past full, sitting about a third of the way up from the western horizon, and it was simply bright out. I felt as though there was enough light for my eyes to be perceiving color in the grass.
The morning before, with about 50 percent cloud cover, I had been able to see the skunk from about 12 feet away, rather than becoming aware of him by detecting his movement in the dark. Which made it easy to avoid him.
But this morning I started to wonder how far away I would be able to detect my doppelganger, Ed, in the moonlight. I figured at least a hundred yards away. As it was, he was coming up the other side of the bridge over the Mill Gut, so he was probably only about 75 yards away when he became visible.
I had also wondered whether the new guy with the dog – and the flashlight – who began showing up about a month ago would be able to see well enough to forgo the flashlight. Although he has been getting better…over the past few weeks, he’s stopped flicking it on pointed at my face, now directing it towards his feet instead.
The guy who drives up and parks on the circular lookout just before the bridge and leaves his headlights lit for two minutes, shining out into space and burning the night vision out of the walkers was there, though.
No boats were on the water this morning – whether because of the full moon, the low tide, or the 12 to 17 miles per hour winds, I don’t know. I assume they were launching from another location this morning.
The floodlight mounted on the wooden pole next to the two defunct toll booths at the entrance to the park has been lit 24 hours a day since Saturday, and it was still lighting up a small circle at the entry. That one will be self-limiting. The flood light will burn out in a couple of days at the most, and it will probably be six months before it gets replaced.
The Phantom Bike Rider (an old guy dressed in black on a dark bicycle who rides the streets of Bristol in the pre-dawn hours) came up on my right shoulder as I passed Harbor Point at the head of the harbor, the noise of his bicycle cloaked by the sound of the wind. “Good morning,” he said into my right ear, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
Still, it was a great morning.
Trying to figure out if this will be the latest sunrise on a morning with a full moon visible to me this year. Next full moon is on November 2nd, but because daylight savings stops the morning before, due to the switch to Daylight Spending Time the sun will be rising earlier for that full moon than for this one. November 1st will have the latest sunrise of the year, 7:15 a.m. (it was 6:48 this morning).
On the other hand, because December this year will feature a Blue Moon on December 31st, and because the earth is slow to swing back on its axis, the sunrise time on December 31st – and for several days on either side of the 31st – will be 7:13 a.m. So that will make it the latest sunrise of the year for a morning with a full moon.
Whether the moon will be as visible on any of the next three full moons is another question. Like most of the things on the morning walk, you have to take what is given.
Took this on Sunday morning, a morning of interesting light and mist, in the Coggeshall farm dooryard. Put it up on the Wunderground photo site and the “Approver” made it one of his/her “Choices,” and as a result it was seen and rated by several times the usual number of viewers. Currently has an average rating of 9.4 out of 10 with 69 people rating it (full disclosure: I rated it myself, and gave it a 10).