the Way of the Turtle

1.3 Mile Walk at Tinker Nature Park
Sunday, October 18, 2009

Tinker Nature Park trail map (5 MB PDF)

After Ann got back from the 2nd day of her EMT conference, we decided it was too nice a day to stay indoors and headed over to Tinker Nature Park for a bit of walking before I had to get back to Albany. We chose Tinker because it's fairly flat, not a very long walk, and there's usuually a decent amount of wildlife around. We saw several groups of geese in the pond, and Ann spotted a snake on the hillside that houses the hibernaculum. I was pleased to see a number of bat houses in the park... with the massive die-offs bats are suffering in the northeast, I think we need to do everything we can to help them survive. We also saw a very shaggy-looking rabbit... perhaps the cold weather has his winter coat coming in early?

As we completed the trail loop through the woods and came out by the bird blind, a deer came out and started munching on berries in the trees. From the way she approached us it was pretty clear she was used to people... we almost got her to come over and take some berries out of our hands, but in the end she didn't want to get quite that close. A little while later another group came out of the woods, and eventually they all ended up in the weeds chowing down. They let me get pretty close before deciding they'd had enough and running off a short distance... this group didn't seem quite as comfortable as the first deer we saw, but they were still obviously used to having people around... not at all like the deer I'm used to seeing in the Pine Bush!

JMH