Tinker Nature Park
Brighton Town Park
Monday, March 17, 2008
Tinker Nature Park photos
Brighton Town Park photos
Since I needed to pick Ann up at work, I couldn't go to far to wander through the woods... in the end I decided to visit the Tinker Nature Park in Henrietta. Ann and I had gone there a couple of years ago, and I remembered it as a short easy walk.
The trails were pretty much uniformly snow-covered, but it was well-packed and easy walking. I started out following the perimeter trail, which headed off into the woods and through what will probably be a hardwood swamp once the snow melts. Spotted a deer fairly early on; sadly, it had a broken front leg and was finding it pretty tough to get around, especially on the ice under the trees. Further along I spotted a group of five deer near the pond - they headed off into a stand of trees, and I wandered along the boardwalk through the frozen swamp.
On the other side of the swamp I spotted two deer in the field, so I did my best to sneak up on them using a picnic pavilion as a blind... turned out I was working much too hard, these two were very used to people. They happily munched away at their afternoon meal as I got closer, and even moved closer to me as I stood there... in the end, the younger one got within about three feet of me before I decided it was time to move on. I followed the trail back toward the pond, and spotted the five deer I'd seen earlier resting in the woods. That was fairly cool - I don't think I've seen them doing that before.
I had about an hour to kill before picking up Ann, so I checked my copy of Rich and Sue Freeman's Take a Hike! Family Walks in the Rochester Area and discovered that the Brighton Town Park was both on the way and small enough to wander around in the time I had left. So I headed over there and walked the fairly short path through the woods. Nothing all that remarkable... and unfortunately the entire time the traffic noise from I390 and I590 was in the background.
After I got back to the park lodge I snapped some photos of the crows and a gull, and then walked down the path along the pond to the picnic pavilion and said hello to the geese along the way. The pond can be fairly interesting in the summer - there are typically ducks, geese, and occasionally a heron there - but today the main thing I noticed was the large office complex they built a few years back. Like we don't have enough of those already... I'd have much rather they leave the wetlands that were there originally.
So altogether, I think I managed between 4.5 and 5 miles of walking today. Maybe tomorrow I can actually get out for a short run...
JMH
