A Quick Outing Before Class

Camping was supposed to start right now.  But, the weather is crummy, and most people are interested in rolling with it.  So, I'll go out first thing in the morning and others will join me throughout the morning.

Thunderstorms were supposed to kick in this morning around 5.  When I woke at 6:30 and there was no rain, I checked  the weather.  With the forecast clear until noon and no classes until about that time, I headed down to the park to spend some time in the woods. 

I planned to hike the boardwalk, take some pictures, enjoy the weather and relax.  Right off I saw several Winter Wrens and Carolina Wrens. 

I saw a White-Breasted Nuthatch and a couple of Brown Creepers, but have no photos of those guys.  I spotted this Red-Shouldered Hawk in the tree tops:

As I walked, I thought it was interesting that the Boardwalk trail left the boardwalk.  I had not remembered that a section of the trail was an earthen path, but I wasn't really surprised, I tend to get distracted out there.  After a while, I realized that I had missed a turn, probably while following a wren, was on a different trail, and eventually I ended up at Wise Lake.

On the way back to the trail head, I passed through a small meadow of sorts and watched a few hundred Cedar Waxwings fly in and land in the surrounding trees.  Pretty cool.

Here's a sweet little Hermit Thrush.  If you look closely you can see two tiny little water droplets on his head, right above his eye.  The weather was not as clear as had been forecasted.

I spotted a Great Blue Heron and I watched him for a few minutes.

As I was about to mosey on down the trail, I sensed the tension building up in the heron and knew he was about to strike at a fish, so I watched for a little while longer.

Turns out it wasn't a fish he was after!  The Heron would pick up the snake, thrash it around a bit, drop it, then start over.  Here's a quick little video.  It's tough to take a good video at 35x zoom without a tripod, so please pardon the quality.

I never saw the Heron eat the snake, so I figured he must have given up.  But watching this last video that I took, it looks an awful lot like he may have slipped the snake down his gullet without me noticing!

I stopped in at visitors' center to chat with Corinne and John for a little while before running off to class.  I'm looking forward to spending the weekend out there.