This Saturday morning I arrived at the park just after 8am. Technically today is the LAST DAY OF WINTER!!! The temp was a steady 34 degrees all morning and there was a very fine frost coating on everything. It was kind an unusual frost in that if you bumped the branches, it would fall right off like a heavy dust.
Somewhere before the bridge I almost stepped on a Woolly Bear caterpillar on the trail. I thought for sure it was dead and left over from last fall until I noticed it move ever so slightly. When I picked him up he could barely curl up into a ball probably due to the cold temp. I think this is the earliest I've ever seen any caterpillar before.
As I was making my way around the park I faintly heard a single bird call off to my left. I paid no attention and kept walking for a bit until I thought about when I'd last heard that sound. There it was, the first Red-winged Black of the season. Again I thought this seemed a bit early but I heard or spotted 3 or 4 more before making it around the park. I was walking the opposite way around today so I was coming around the ball fields near the end.
Since the path around there is always icy I decided to cut across the baseball diamond and started to notice these odd looking patterns. They were trails or tunnels through the grass made either by mice or voles underneath the winter snow. At first glance, I think this photo looks a lot like an aerial view of a river system taken from an airplane.
This Saturday morning I arrived at the park just after 8am. Technically today is the LAST DAY OF WINTER!!! The temp was a steady 34 degrees all morning and there was a very fine frost coating on everything. It was kind an unusual frost in that if you bumped the branches, it would fall right off like a heavy dust. 
Somewhere before the bridge I almost stepped on a Woolly Bear caterpillar on the trail. I thought for sure it was dead and left over from last fall until I noticed it move ever so slightly. When I picked him up he could barely curl up into a ball probably due to the cold temp. I think this is the earliest I've ever seen any caterpillar before. 
As I was making my way around the park I faintly heard a single bird call off to my left. I paid no attention and kept walking for a bit until I thought about when I'd last heard that sound. There it was, the first Red-winged Black of the season. Again I thought this seemed a bit early but I heard or spotted 3 or 4 more before making it around the park. I was walking the opposite way around today so I was coming around the ball fields near the end. 
Since the path around there is always icy I decided to cut across the baseball diamond and started to notice these odd looking patterns. They were trails or tunnels through the grass made either by mice or voles underneath the winter snow. At first glance, I think this photo looks a lot like an aerial view of a river system taken from an airplane.
No comments:
Post a Comment