Winter walk on Clinton Road

I went looking for the White-winged Crossbills that were sighted on Clinton Road but did not find them. Instead I reveled in the beauty of winter. The snow lay draped on the green boughs and the ice coating glittered like a fairy land. It is how I would imagine Narnia to look.

Clinton Reservoir was completely frozen, but Mossman's Brook danced and sang as merrily as ever.

White-winged Crossbills eat the seeds from small cones like Hemlocks. Here...Crossy, Crossy, Crossy...Don't these look snacky?


Well at least something had been sampling the bittersweet.


I love the way ice looks on twigs and branches but I am concerned for the trees now that we have had ice for over a week and a deep freeze is coming from an Arctic blast.

Nature walk on the first day of summer

I walked down a path strewn with wildflowers.
Warblers, vireos, and cuckoos were singing and carrying caterpillars to feed their insatiable young.
An Eastern Kingbird peeked out barely visible as she sat on her nest.
A fuzzy baby Baltimore Oriole shrieked until a harried father popped a juicy black tidbit in its mouth.


Stopping to watch a Dung Beetle roll his heavy load,
I noticed hundreds of minuscule brown toads the size of my pinkie nail hopping frantically out of the way of lumbering feet.
A small Northern Ring-neck Snake darted off the path into the grass and a large black rat snake lay curled in a tree like an inner tube tossed for spite.


Dragonflies darted like glittering jewels of blue and green.
I would need to bring a backpack full of field guides to identify the abundance of nature that surrounds us.
Happy first day of summer.

Wordless Wednesday

Why Cowboys jingle when they walk.

The round thing is the rowel, but I do not know what the jingley things are called.

Walk in the Woods

I spent some time in the woods this weekend in 2 different state parks. I saw some great birds, came home loaded with ticks, took some nice photos, chatted with several out-of-state visitors, gave directions twice, saw some sort of water snake, petted a few dogs, and generally had a great time. This is one of the photos I took. This wild columbine was growing out of a crevice of a rock. Pretty cool, huh?

WalkAmerica

Have you noticed that every charity has some sort of Walk or Run or Race these days? Have you ever participated? Well, today, I did WalkAmerica for the March of Dimes. This walk is the granddaddy of them all. It started in 1970 and has been going strong ever since. It felt good to get out there with all of the other walkers to do something for a good cause. There were groups of folks from companies walking together. There were teams from high schools, and there were lots of people that were walking with a baby’s picture on their t-shirts. There were families, there were dogs, there were clowns, there were cheerleaders, it seemed like everybody and their brother was there. There were lots of babies, which made sense, since the mission of the March of Dimes is to prevent birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. There are Walks in many communities in every state. Check out their website at WalkAmerica.org. Put on your shoes, get out there.