Spring on steroids

Spring-like weather seems to have taken forever to arrive this year, but today it felt like we skipped spring altogether and went right into summer! The temp was unusually high at 73º and on top of that it was extremely humid -quite strange for early April! It made for a great visit though as I spent nearly 2 hours making my way around and taking just under 100 photos. I had a hard time choosing what to post because I saw so much. First were a pair of Tree Swallows that were zooming around one of the wooden bird houses on the north side. It's an exciting sign of more colorful birds starting to come back to the park. Just a short time later I was stunned to see a 3 foot Garter Snake on the path. It seemed a bit early to see a snake but I was just now checking my older posts and saw that my first snake sighting last year was Sunday, April 11th -so exactly one year ago to the day. What are the odds of that? Surprisingly, snakes weren't the only reptile out today. I later saw a few painted turtles sunning themselves in the small body of water by the east side baseball fields. I shot a couple pics but as I walked further I ran into 2 more just sitting on the ground right off the trail. This side of the park was quite flooded by snow melt and there's still water everywhere hence the turtles. I've seen Great Blue Herons flying overhead since late March but I've not seen many stop in the park until recently. I swear they are 10 times more skittish than any Deer in the park so I often have to stalk them for a while to get a decent photo. They are an interesting bird as they can look quite different in every photo. I had an easier time locating this one against the backdrop of cattails by looking for his reflection in the water so I decided to include that in my photo. As I was making my way back to the parking lot I could see Bald Eagle seemingly sitting right on top of the water. As I got closer I could see that he was perched on a small portion of a branch barely jutting above the surface. It was funny because Canada Geese would swim right by him and he would tip his head as if he thought they were strange looking birds or something. He put his wings up once to balance himself as he turned to face the other way but I missed that picture moment.

Slugs and Bugs and Such

After going through a couple weeks without any significant rainfall, we are starting to get some here and there, mostly overnights. Seems like the wet weather brings the slugs out onto the trail and it's getting harder to avoid stepping on them. There are also tons of these small brown butterflies with orange stripes. Butterflies in my opinion are as equally hard to photograph as birds as they also never sit still. These are common butterflies I see all the time but have yet to learn their name. I'm also still seeing a fair amount of Garter Snakes and it's surprising how big they are already. This one was over three feet long but less colorful than the one I'd photographed earlier with orange speckles. On the south side I spotted this Frog right up by the railroad ties that make up the overlook onto the lake. He didn't seem to move much even when I almost stepped on him. I've also yet to learn much about frogs versus toads so I'm just guessing it was a frog as it was rather large. I will have to pick up another Field guide from Stan Tekiela!

Turning colder in May

It's steadily gotten more cold and damp in May which is really strange considering the very warm April we've had. It was easy getting used to 70 degrees in April but extra hard adjusting to mid 40's again in May! Tonight was a little better and the sun had finally popped out showing how green everything has become. On the west side I sidetracked into the woods to retrieve some garbage when I noticed this rather large and colorful snake. I'm sure it was just an everyday Garter Snake but it was close to three feet long with bright specks of orange on it. I got in real close for a picture and it got kind of pissed at me and looked like it might lunge at me. Later I spotted a Bald Eagle perched way out across the park in some dead tree tops. I've been seeing him here for the past few visits but never seem to get close to him. I'm also seeing about 9-10 deer almost every visit lately which is really unusual. It's much harder to catch pictures though now with all the tall grass and foliage. I'm also noticing a lot of them with "nubs" lately which is pretty cool. I'm pretty sure that the majority of young ones in the park are actually bucks. On the south side near the very spot I saw the Coyote last week, I watched this family of geese for a bit. The young ones, still yellow and fuzzy kept walking up underneath the female and she would kick them away with one leg. I couldn't figure out what they wanted until she sat down. Then all of them came barreling into her from behind and tucked themselves under her feathers for warmth.

Greening up

The small buds I'd noticed a couple of weeks ago are now turning into leaves and the park is slowly becoming green again. I've noticed that birch trees seem to be the first ones although I think this one might be a Boxelder because of the weird reddish colored hanging fruit. Red-winged Blackbirds seem to be taking over the park at this point, but I guess it wouldn't be a swamp without their familiar "chirping." I hadn't thought of it before but I guess only the males have the recognizable red and yellow shoulder patches. According to my bird book, the males return from migration before the females so it makes sense why I've been seeing so many. On the east side I caught a quick glimpse of a Garter Snake getting some sun just off the paved trail. It was between 2 and 3 feet long, and was an unusual sight for so early in the year I thought.

Critters everywhere

Everything I expected to see yesterday -and way more- were out today. It was one of those fantastic walks that happen only 2-3 times a year where I can start to lose track of everything I saw. To start I actually saw a Mallard chasing a Garden Snake. Or maybe it was the other way around. Regardless, the commotion caught my eye and I snapped this pic right after the duck headed back into the creek. Afterward I saw a flash of color way off in the woods and I stopped quickly when I realized it was a male Pheasant. Only the 2nd or 3rd time I've seen one here and they're darn hard to get a photo of. He was far enough away as to not be spooked and after I stood there long enough I noticed another then another then another. As I stood there snapping pictures I heard a rustling to my right and noticed another male only 10 feet from me. Though he was scurrying through the underbrush, this photo turned out better than the others 50 feet off in the woods. Later I came upon 2 more small snakes on the trail. I wonder if they don't have babies sometime in the fall. Upon rounding the north side I noticed some movement off the right side of the trail and thought there were yet more Pheasants. In fact there were 5 wild Turkeys. I snapped one crummy photo before they were gone. Since there's a trail into the woods in close proximity I decided to see if I could get ahead of them for some better pics. But as I darted into the woods, deer jumped up everywhere catching me by surprise. They didn't run far and soon I forgot about the turkeys as the group of deer milled about cautiously. I quickly picked a seat on a fallen tree and as sure as they've done in the past, the whole group eventually walked up very close to me. I snapped a ton of pics though the thick woods got in the way much of the time. All four or five looked to be Does and two of the smaller ones could very well have been the fawns I encountered earlier in the year. Later, as I was thinking about my missed photo opportunity with the Turkey's I was just crossing the ball fields and noticed these huge tracks. I laughed as the entire field was covered in them and wondered just how many Turkeys had created them. They must have been out there in the rain as even my footprints weren't making that much of an impression.