the Way of the Turtle

1 Mile Walk at Ann Lee Pond Nature Preserve
Sunday, November 29, 2009

Another gorgeous November day, sunny and much warmer than we were expecting. After breakfast Ann and I headed over to Ann Lee Pond so we could walk around a bit and I could show her the "crazy bridge" across the back end of the pond. We walked along the shore of the pond and then through the woods back to the bridge. I was a bit surprised at how few birds and squirrels we saw along the way, though we did see a large group of mallards in the swamp at the back of the pond and another group paddling around the crazy bridge. (I'm sure it was level when it was first built, but since then the supports have apparently shifted in various ways resulting in several unusual twists and tilts to the bridge surface. Ann expressed a certain amount of surprise that it hasn't been condemned and torn down, through it certainly seems pretty stable despite its odd configuration - I have to admit, it has a certain bizarre charm the way it is and I would be sorry to see it leveled out.)

As we walked through the fields back to the car, we spotted goldfinches, chicadees, bluejays, and cardinals zipping around through the weeds and trees. Ann also spotted a pair of hawks off in the distance, though they flew off before I spotted them. It would have been nice to walk back into the woods to see if the beavers were out swimming in their pond, but while the main part of the preserve is off limits to hunters I'm not sure of the status of those "off trail" woods and we didn't want to risk possibly getting in trouble for trespassing or worse get shot at by someone mistaking us for deer rustling through the fallen leaves.

JMH