Nature and Wildlife

This past weekend brought gorgeous weather to our neck of the woods, and we spent the majority of it on house tasks. We cleaned up the front yard, the backyard, the garage, and defrosted our deep freezer. I was so productive that I even got Nature Girl's room clean and the oil changed in my car!

After Sunday's work was complete, I realized that we hadn't gotten out into nature at all, so after we did our last task (taking glass in to the recycling center) we decided it was time for a nature pit stop. We drove up to Wild Heron Haven just so we could take a leisurely stroll and catch some wildlife. I grabbed my camera, of course, so I could take pictures.

Wild Heron Haven (WHH) has a decent-sized pond for ducks, heron, and geese to visit or stay for awhile. The Sun is starting to set later and later, thankfully, and I captured this beautiful photo of it setting against the pond.

Nature Girl ran to the end of the wetland pond boardwalk to check out the water fowl.

Of course the geese mostly flew away as we were walking up to them, but I was able to get a good photo of the last group of them on the pond before they took off.

There they go!

WHH built this cute little viewing spot a couple of years ago, and here we have NG and Daddy relaxing here for a moment. There was another couple here as we arrived, and they were just leaving this spot with an empty bottle of wine. Smart idea!

The big pond is fed from smaller inlets--or feeds into them--and it was in one of these that we saw a muskrat. It took a few minutes of patience to get a good shot of him.

This is the muskrat's home. I love how beautiful the reflections of everything were. I find beauty in nature, no matter what time of year.

A view up a tree.

We saw a group of mallard ducks as well. Their green heads are so vibrant!

We saw this guy on the walking trail. He thawed out (prematurely I might add) as the weather was unseasonably warm, and is supposed to grow cold again (with snow) this weekend.

One more shot of the sky before we went home. Ahhh, what a pleasant evening's stroll. Truthfully, it was so pleasant that I didn't want the weekend to end. The fact that it was at or near 70 degrees all weekend definitely helped with that.

Have a great rest of your week, and I'll be back Friday with a new post!

-H.A.