the Way of the Turtle

A Brief Visit to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge
Sunday, May 3, 2009

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Montezuma NWR site
Friends of the Montzuma Wetlands Complex site

Since I was in the immediate area anyways I decided I might as well visit some of the portions of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge that were easy to access (ie. I didn't want to take the wildlife drive, since that's typically time consuming.) What I saw told me that Ann and I were fortunate we stopped a couple of weeks ago... the water level has dropped in a number of spots, and there were far fewer waterfowl visible in the places I checked. Given the profusion of wildlife we saw during our last visit, I can only conclude that we timed it just right...

Stopped briefly to snap some photos of an osprey on one of the nests along Rt 5/20, and verified that the nesting platform we saw in the North Spring Pool appears to be the one that's visible on New York Wild's osprey-cam. Watched a few ducks in the Mays Point Pool and stopped at the visitor's center where I watched the swallows zooming all over the place - their maneuverability is incredible!

JMH