the Way of the Turtle

A BEAUTIFUL OCTOBER AFTERNOON, Part 2
1.3 Mile Walk at Five Rivers Environmental Education Center
Sunday, October 26, 2008

On the way back to Albany I decided to stop at Five Rivers EEC for a walk around the ponds... Five Rivers is usually good for spotting some wildlife, and it seemed like a good way to wrap up my Sunday outdoor adventures.

Apparently lots of other folks thought the same thing, because the parking lot was packed. I've never been there and wondered if I'd find parking before today. Thankfully, all those people were either at an event in the Nature Center or visiting other places in the preserve, because I only ran into a few people as I wandered along the trail to and around the Beaver Pond.

One group I passed was definitely made up of serious birders - they had all sorts of optics and were looking at a bird high up in a tree at the edge of the parking lot. I heard somebody say something about it being the first sighting at Five Rivers in two years... if I'd been smart I would have asked what the ID was, but in my fluid and food-deprived brain wasn't working well enough to come up with that. A little later on I spotted a couple of nuthatches, after hearing them up in the trees overhead. (That's one of the cooler things about getting a bit more into birding... being able to hear certain calls and know that a particular bird is nearby. I marvel sometimes at all the birds I was missing back when I was paying as much attention as I do now.)

Other than that, there wasn't much to see, beyond some nice autumn scenery. Only saw two ducks on the ponds, and the ever-present redwinged blackbirds in the reeds. Maybe if I had the energy to walk out to the ponds in the back fields I would have seen more, but by that time I was getting tired enough that I actually sat down for a little while on my way around the Beaver Pond, so I decided to call it a day when I got back to the car and headed off to find some food and drink... and maybe a nice soft bed to collapse into.

JMH