When Going Green means Going Bad

The lake is a bright lurid green today - a literal algal soup. I'm sure it's bad for the fish, and it certainly looks strange.

A little bit of reading suggests that we have bloom of cyanobacteria (i.e. not true algae at all) - when the cells get old or dry out they turn turquoise, hence the old name of blue-green algae. There is plenty of turquoise film at the moment - on the remains of the lilypads for example and washed up upon the shore.! It's not the first time that I've noticed such an algal bloom - we had one in the spring, and I suspect we have them every year - but it's the first time that I've recognized it for what it is.

These algal blooms can be toxic. Migrating waterfowl have started to appear on the lake - coots and pied-billed grebes - so I hope that it doesn't do any serious damage to the birds. It's hard to imagine them diving down into the depths right now without them coming up green!