What a wonderful natural heritage area – 208 acres of forest, ponds, wetlands and streams.
There were birds around the parking lot by the road and even more birds as soon as we started walking up the trail. We tallied 22 species altogether. Many were singing, a few were visible. The “best” bird we saw was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.
There were turtles and birds in the large wetland while other birds flew overhead.
Here, a female Hooded Merganser put on a good show by catching and swallowing a fish.
She preened herself on a log afterwards while a Wood Duck with at least a dozen ducklings swam around in the distance.
An American Robin was building a nest over the path. On the other side of the path, two Great Crested Flycatchers were “hawking” for flying insects.
All of the turtles appeared to be Midland Painted Turtles.
A female was the best lit specimen of the Ebony Jewelwings who were on both sides of the path.
There were lots of wildflowers in bloom.
This week’s bouquet…
…featured wine-coloured anemones and peachy ranunculus.
2023 Audubon Photography Awards Winners
The photos and videos are stunning, as always!
(Click the underlined links in green to see them.)
Music Videos
While looking for more gentle content, I came across a 1970 appearance of Eric Clapton with Derek and the Dominos on Johnny Cash’s TV show. The arrangement of “It’s Too Late” is much leaner than on the studio album and shows that the 4-piece band worked well together. But the pleasant surprise was that Carl Perkins was a regular on Cash’s show and the expanded group performed “Matchbox” written by Carl Perkins.
I was reminded that Carl was branded “The King of Rockability” and was part of “The Million Dollar Quartet” along with Cash, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. A bit of Internet searching confirmed Carl Perkins was revered in England and some of his songs were performed and recorded there often. For this story to make sense, have a look at this concert video from 3 years before Carl’s death.