Evening River

A Tuesday evening, tired from a full day, I decided to go to the river for renewal. 8 PM the sun going down on a good day. Stepping across the gate and walking down the old jeep road, the yellow flowers of the tall Grindelia gumweed are noticeably closed, at least petals stand erect, closing off the central disk flowers. The world's tallest giant r,agweed stand (not really, but it is 2-3 m high) is releasing bright golden yellow pollen. Woe to those afflicted with autumn hay fever. Stepping through the green tunnel and out onto the levee, the warm white sand is unusually soft this evening.
At the river's edge the water is cutting more and more into the bank I first come to, where once there was a 10- 15 foot 'beach'. Now the current flow has moved against the sandy cliff of the levee.
  Across the water a great blue heron flies up complaining with a hoarse croak about my late visit to the river. I can imagine the complaint something like, 'What are you doing here now? This is the time for the natives, the ones who have always lived here for the last centuries or more, back to a time of nature. Now is their time. What are you doing here?'
  The bare, dead trees up above the far bank are silhouetted against the silver sky and more interesting and beautiful in silhouette than their full-leafed neighbors. The river continues to drop, exposing more, more expansive sand bars in mid channel. The flow now winds principally in smaller deep channels to the side or still in the center.
  Stepping in to the water the temperature is mildly warm, a result of the long string of low 90F days. But on of the river there are bands of cooler water, cooling with evening. I wade across the water and the sand bars to the far bank and the deeper channel. I walk my sometimes/ frequent morning route there but see no damselflies. I do see the snout of a water snake swimming upstream, I scare away.
There is one place by the old concrete rip rap where the water is still chin deep,. but after it shelves out to a broader shallow spread of water. I turn to return and see the silhouette of a large darner dragonfly above the water with a hunting night hawk in the sky above. Returning up the jeep road a dozen fireflies are doing their thing. I think about Phenology and Global warming.. and how the May/ June flood may a bit like a quick example of global warming. The river is only now beginning to develop soft beds of algae across much of the bottom. Before the scouring and churning water and sand prevented significant growth. Now there will be food for corixids and other algal feeders, and later for predators feeding on the corixids. This is all starting  and happening about two months later than was the case the previous 4 years. Now autumn is not long in coming.. and the succession is in early stages. What will it be like when the first cold days arrive?