A sunny day this week Donna and I took a walk around Wildwing Lake. On the island heronry there were many very large and demanding young great blue herons clacking their beaks loudly, asking their parents for food. if you click on the image, it gets very large and you can see a heron on the tree top right in the center. The heronry is gradually being taken over by egrets, who were in a different, earlier stage of courtship, with the males fanning out their showy tail feathers in a white spray and others flying past with twigs in their mouths, presenting them to the females to build new nests high in the trees.
And there were several swans to be seen, one with five cygnets, all very close to the boardwalk out past the heronry.
And then, at the edge of the trail not very far from the parking lot, another bird family was foraging. i've never seen a sandhill crane chick before.
We took Iris and Ivy to our county vet for worming (they get them from rodents and birds they hunt and eat) and there were three little chestnut foals in the pasture.
The bluebirds are nesting in one box here; sparrows in the other, but i cleaned out the latter nest before eggs were laid. There are so many unfamiliar bird calls; "warblers migrating through," says Dan, "and a warbling vireo. Easy to hear but you'll never see it." Orioles calling and streaking orange as they fly over the pond.
In the pond, two big snapping turtles were floating in the water side-by-side, their shells touching, enjoying a moment of post-coital bliss. A little later we watched while the female (she's a little smaller) snapped out her long neck in a flash and grabbed a careless goldfish. There are lots more goldfish, ranging from xs to xxxl, more than we could have imagined. And plenty of frogs and tadpoles at different stages.
So on it goes. More soon.
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