the Way of the Turtle

2.8 Mile Walk at Five Rivers Environmental Education Center
Friday, March 13, 2009

With my first snowshoe race in two weeks tomorrow morning (and up and down Northfield Mountain, no less) I decided to take it easy tonight... but it was too nice to stay indoors, so I headed over to Five Rivers to wander around a bit and see what critters were around.

As is often the case, a lot of the trails and fields were wet and muddy, with a few spots still under a thick layer of ice. But I still had a nice wander, first around the Beaver Pond, then along the Vlomankill, and finally through the fields back to the parking lot.

Along the way I saw a variety of birds, and heard an unbelievable number of red-winged blackbirds. There were geese and ducks down in the ponds, and apparently someone has been feeding the geese; when I went out on the floating observation platform, they swam right over and hung around hoping for a handout. But the biggest surprise was the two muskrats I spotted swimming along the sunny edge of Beaver Pond. And best of all, with my new camera I was able to get some pretty nice shots of them all...

JMH