1.9 Mile Walk at Five Rivers EEC
Monday, August 16, 2010
Yesterday's activities left me sore and more than a bit whupped, so I ditched my plans to go for a ride today and ended up heading over to Five Rivers late in the evening. I was very surprised at how many people were there, especially with kids in tow... the turtle bridge and the beaver platform were both fairly crowded, and I ended up spending very little time at them. On the plus side... I have to support parents encouraging their kids to enjoy nature and the outdoors, even if I wish they could do it a bit more quietly...
I started out checking the flower garden for hawk moths... no luck. So I headed down the hill to the Heron Pond, which was actually hosting a great blue heron tonight. Spent a while trying to take pictures without scaring him off, and got a nice shot when he finally decided to head to a more secluded part of the pond. The usual ducks were also puttering around in the background, and I spotted a couple of frogs camouflaged by all the green algae.
Since the turtle bridge was crowded I skipped going there and headed across the boardwalk through the swampy side of the Beaver Pond. I could hear a red-bellied woodpecker calling somewhere off in the trees, but the big surprise was the hummngbird that buzzed up and landed on a branch over the trail, then took off to feed at some flowers before landing again briefly and finally heading off for wherever he roosts in at night.
Briefly spotted one of the beavers from the far end of the pond... perhaps they were waiting for nightfall to be out and about. There were a couple of turtles out on the logs as I walked up the hill and then looped back down to the turtle bridge... which had another group on it. They must have spotted one of the snapping turtles, because they were saying something about never having seen one that big... I wonder if they saw the one of the medium sized ones or the really big fella?
From there it was back across the road to the Heron Pond, where I spent a while watching the heron, the ducks, and especially the cedar waxwings... while I was there I heard something splashing in the water, which turned out to be a fairly large snapping turtle. I followed the paved road back up the hill to the top of the Vlomankill trail, then decided to loop through the field and old orchard before heading back to the car.
Stopped at the Sunfish Pond for a moment and not only got to watch the bats fluttering around but managed to get a couple of halfway decent photos as well (as opposed to the vaguely bat-shaped blurs I usually get.) As I started to head back down the trail to the parking lot, I heard something crashing through the bushes... and a moment later two raccoons popped out, saw me, and dashed up the nearest tree, where they clung staring at me while I tried to get a photo . Finally they decided I wasn't going to chase them, came back down the tree, and disappeared into the bushes. They seemed on the smaller side, so I'm guessing they were youngsters...
When I decided to go for a walk this evening I debated about going to Five Rivers, since it's usually the place I'll go... tonight definitely reminded me why that's the case.
JMH
