1.9 Mile Walk at Five Rivers EEC
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
I had planned to go for a short run today, but my stomach had other ideas... so rather than risk potentially messy consequences out on the trail, I headed over to Five Rivers again to do a bit of easy walking.
Lots of frogs at the small pool near the Visitors Center, including some little guys I hadn't seen there before and one that had found a prime spot behind the trickling waterfall.
On my way down to the Beaver Pond I surprised a pair of deer and was fortunate to have a group of cedar waxwings stop for a break in a bush right in front of me.
No beaver activity tonight, but down at the far end of the pond a mallard was standing on top of the spillway obviously agitated. When I went to the bridge I discovered why - her ducklings had gone over the spillway and had no way to get back up to her. Spent a little while trying to figure out how I could help and concluded that there was nothing I could do - even if I'd managed to safely climb down into the spillway, there's no way I could catch the ducklings to lift them back up to the pond. Looked like her best bet was to fly down to them, then take them over the second spillway into the stream - from there they could walk back up the beaver run (an area the beavers use to move back and forth between the pond and the stream.) While I was checking out the beaver run, she must have done just that, because when I went back to the bridge - no duck or ducklings in sight. Hope they all made it through the experience OK...
JMH
