I know, it’s been a while…
I was going to ride my road bike this morning, but the atmosphere was threatening rain, and the radar suggested the rain might get here ahead of forecast. I don’t like to be on the road in the rain, so instead I took the kayak out on the lake. It’s not like a little rain falling from the sky will make much difference with all the water splashed around from the lake.

And I had the mountain bike on the trails at the Lake Rabon Park yesterday, so I got in some peddling. It was a chilly morning, enough so to raise some steam fog.


When mountain biking, it’s important to keep an eye out for other trail users and give them their space.

A little catch up from around the neighborhood: this tree is one that just wouldn’t give up. It got bent over 90 degrees and put up 4 more trunks on top of the bent portion.

This lead plant was starting to bloom and attracting the pollinators (bon appétit!):

I think this must be where I’ve seen the vultures going to roost every night (N.B. that’s not snow on the ground):

I have Eastern Bluebirds using the nest boxes in my front yard:

Back to the lake this morning… The Osprey are making good use of the platform by the dam. I saw a head pop up from the nest several times while I was watching, while the alert parent watched me.

This Osprey in flight was giving a good demonstration of wing design. Those splayed feathers at the tips recover energy from the wingtip vortices, just like the “winglets” on human airplanes (note: the Osprey thought of it first).

I’ve mentioned before how difficult is is to get a good picture of the (relatively) small and fast-moving Belted Kingfishers. Here’s a difficult photo:

This group of Canada Geese included some young’uns. They grow up so fast….

At the other end of the cycle, I came across this lone goose, who was obviously in difficulty, continuously turning around in one spot with his head off to one side.

I thought maybe he got caught up in some fishing line or something a sloppy human left laying around, so I approached carefully. He didn’t seem to notice me, and I got close enought to sweep my paddle under him to see if there was anything hanging. I found nothing, and as I watched he was clearly running out of energy. I tried calling the local wildlife rehab to see if I could get someone quickly, but that didn’t happen and with little option, I reluctantly left the situation to the natural processes. A little while later I came by and found only a feathery debris field in that area.

sigh.

On a more solid footing, this rock gave an idea of the historical lake levels:

And finally, we have the obligatory Great Blue Heron picture:

and this is what that long pointy beak looks like when it’s pointed right at you (yes, I’ll leave you alone):