I got an opportunity to make another visit to Croft State Park and take a little spring walk in the woods. It might still look a good bit like winter:

and it even felt a bit like winter starting out, but a little closer look around:

up:

and even down:


shows that spring is well under way. The early morning chill didn’t last long either, and soon my extra layers were in the backpack.

One thing I like about Croft is that the trails are, well, trails, and are often just a path through the woods (some places seem to consider a “trail” a paved bit of road that just happens to be too narrow for a car). Of course, that means sometimes you have to be a bit creative and use what Nature provides to get around (or over):

That crossing is on the Whitestone Springs trail, which leads, as one might guess, to Whitestone Springs. That must be the spring itself there:

I’ll do the stereotypical social media thing and post about where and what I had for lunch:

A ham, turkey, swiss sandwich on whole wheat and a banana, eaten near the south end of the Rocky Ridge trail. Actually, that was one of about three lunch breaks I took. Like hypersonic flight, walking around in the woods makes me hungry.
A bit over a year ago, a section of the park was torn up by storms and a tornado. The Beech Tree trail was closed for a long time. I headed up that trail this time and found out why:


In the woods, a lot of the wildlife is hidden from view, but in that torn-up area I did spot a red-tailed hawk:

Sorry, that’s the best I could get with my cell phone camera. Still, if you listen, you can tell you’re far from alone out there. Here’s a little video with the sound massaged so you can hear who’s out there.

I have a T-shirt with a picture similar to this one, with the caption “Recalculating”:

The trail didn’t actually go down that hill, but it was a nice view.
My route ended up going north on the Foster’s Mill Loop trail, down the eastern side of the loop to the Rocky Ridge trail, back to Foster’s Mill, then up, around, and back on the Beech Tree trail, and because I just didn’t feel done just yet, the Nature Trail. Then I was done.

A much-anticipated rare opportunity to pay another visit to Croft State Park occurred today. The weather had turned colder, and I briefly considered delaying my little walk in the woods until later in the day, but some things just shouldn’t be put off. So I layered up and, as is my wont, got to the park right around sunrise, with a temperature just barely on this side of freezing. [Reminder: you can click on the pictures to get a higher-resolution version.]

I hadn’t been to the southern part of the park, so I decided to remedy that on this trip. Access is via the one and only bridge over the Fairforest Creek:

There’s quite a network of trails over there, and one is advised to be prepared:

I was told by park staff that, even though the trails are well marked, yes, people do occasionally get turned around on those trails and end up being lost.

Helpful signs work to keep one on track, and advise the best shortcut back to base, as well as warning what not to do.

My navigation was simplified by sticking to the Southside Loop Trail, which just circumnavigates the area.

Although, I’m not sure I’d want to follow this blaze.

Sunrise in the woods. Always a good thing.

With it being this time of year, there wasn’t a whole lot of wildlife to be seen. Just as well, perhaps, as I didn’t bring my Good Camera and a cellphone has some real limitations when it comes to wildlife photography. I really could have used a longer lens for this bird I saw up high (sorry, there’s no better-resolution version of this one… this is it):

I tried to photograph a few Robins I saw around the trail, but, well, I’ll just call this shot “scenery”.

I did happen across a couple of spiders getting cozy.

The recent rains left some areas rather muddy, and there’s a lot of elevation change on this trail. Watch out for that first step…

At first I thought this might have been a squirrel with a really long tail, but it was some sort of vine growing up the tree, with some other fuzzy growth on it.

After completing the Southside Loop Trail, I had a little extra time so I went out the Idaho Trail and back on the Outlaw Trail (the one signs advised was the quickest way back from the far side). The Idaho trail is apparently less traveled, and with all the freshly-fallen leaves, it was sometimes hard to keep track of just where the trail was. There’s also a couple of gullies that had me figuring how to get across them, to the extent that I didn’t get any pictures. It’s easy to see why the Outlaw Trail is the one advertised as being “quickest”.

Now this is what you call going OUT for lunch. “Table with a view, please”. That’s the Fairforest Creek in the background.

By that time I had already shed a couple of layers, but of course, everything came back out of the woods with me. Leave only footprints, if that.

It’s finally starting to look more like late fall-going-on-winter around here, with the weather turning cooler and the trees finally sheding their summer plumage. It was only three weeks ago it still looked like summer.
Recent rains have left the lake level about a foot higher than normal, but it was clearly even higher, as can be seen by the mud line along the shore:

or the mud on this ourcropping of vegetation:

The wildlife is looking more winter-like too, with wintering Buffleheads hanging around:

I try not to spook the wildlife, but sometimes it happens anyway.

Oh, and let’s not forget the obligatory Great Blue Heron picture: this one was hunting for dinner so I kept some distance:

I finally managed to get back out on the lake last weekend. The crazy thing is, with the weather we’ve been having, everything is still green, on the last days of October. These pictures could have just as easily been taken back in July, but really were taken on 2018-10-28.


Some trees were just starting to change colors.

The wild animals didn’t seem too bothered by it. This solitary duck kept popping up and down as I maneuvered around with the camera:

And the turtles were taking advantage of the fall sunshine:

One thing about having a surveillance camera is that it sometimes picks up interesting things. Like this vulture coming in for a landing (full stall, it looks like) on my driveway.

Or this bird playing around the camera:

A little catch up. I’ve been so tied up since the summer, I never had a chance to post these. Believing it’s better late than never, here’s some pictures from last summer.
I believe this is a Prothonotary Warbler I’d seen only once before:


I mentioned that not all the creatures I see while paddling around the lake are aquatic. This raccoon, while not really aquatic, doesn’t seem to mind the water.

Meanwhile, back on shore, I had herds of hummingbirds through most of August. I’d see 6 or 8 at one time swarming around the feeders, which I had to fill every day. I took to mixing up hummingbird fuel by the gallon.

My point with these pictures isn’t so much that they’re good pictures (these guys are small and fast), but I did catch some that really showed how they can maneuver.

Like this one in an almost-90 degree bank leaving the feeder:

At times it got rather crowded, and it seemed the sky wasn’t big enough for two of ’em. No, there was no mirror between these two:

One thing about going up all these little inlets and backwaters I like to frequent is that not all the creatures I see are really aquatic, like this Gray Squirrel:

But there’s plenty that are quite happy in and around the water, like the Osprey, who are working their nest on top of the water system’s intake structure:

Of course, it’s only been a week since my last report, and it’s still Dragonfly season out there:


A lot of them are flying in “extremely close formation”, like these two that I just barely caught with the camera:

For today’s obligatory Great Blue Heron picture, I startled this one when I came around a bend and didn’t see her there:

If you’ve ever wondered how you land a bird of this size (or, more accurately, how a bird of this size lands a bird of this size)…

Scrub off a little speed..

Plan a full-stall landing (there can’t be much lift left there)…

And put the landing gear …er… feet down before touchdown:

The lake was all silted up from all the recent rains, but all that runoff raised up the water level so I could get into more of the nooks & crannies around the lake.

It’s definitely the Time of the Dragon, Dragon Flies, that is:

This one probably just emerged: that looks like their shed larval skin on the branch:


The Geese have definitely been busy. I came across a large group of Gooselets (and just a few adults) along the shore. They split up (perhaps with all those little ones, I made them nervous), pretty much evenly, and while one group went into the woods, this group continued along the shore. I suspect the met up later.

I’ve said it before, just when I think I’ve seen all the lake has to show me, nature throws something else at me. As I was paddling up one of those little crannies, I saw two large birds moving around in the trees. I first thought “hawk”, but once I got to where I could actually see one, I realized this was something new (to me).


Given that I saw two of them (Barred Owls, I believe), and this one was keeping a real close eye on me, I didn’t want to approach too close in case they had a nest nearby.

Of course, we have the obligatory Great Blue Heron picture; this one had just taken off: they generally fold their necks a few seconds after takeoff.

followed up by a nice full-stall landing. You can see how the airflow has separated across her wings.

It was a cool-ish (for the end of April) rather overcast day, but I was Finally able to get out the lake for the first time this season.

Everything had turned green in the meantime, and a lot of stuff was still blooming:


The Ospreys are back at their nest on the intake structure (you can just see the head above the nest):

Of course, all the usual inhabitants are still out there, like these Geese (got a bit of a bow wave going there):

And, of course, the obligatory Great Blue Heron picture. This one is notable because she’s coming towards me which, for some mysterious reason, is rather rare:

Got a lot of pixels on that one. As usual, click on the picture to get to a full-resolution version.