Another Photo Adventure

   I actually took these photos on the fourth but haven't had time to do much on the computer the last couple of days. I went down to the college to try to take care of some things, and I figured as long as I was right there I might as well take a walk around the ponds that are on the property.

   It was a beautiful day, and I didn't really care if I found anything or not, just going for the walk and exploring a new place was motivation enough for me. However, I've found that if you just look around a bit you can almost always find something worth taking a picture of.

   The first critter I ran into was this calico cat, I disturbed his hunt and it was none to pleased with me for it. Normally I wouldn't take pictures of someones house cat, but there weren't any houses nearby. So I figured he was out adventuring just like me, and I just thought he was kinda cool. It didn't think I was nearly as cool as I thought he was, he hissed at me and ran away.

   Then I found this Canadian Goose sitting on it's nest, on a mud island in the middle of the pond. Geese around here are somewhat obnoxious. There are a lot of parks around this area and the geese seem to get a little too accustomed to people. People also like to feed them and they have come to expect that if you have food, you should give it to them, and they can be quite aggressive about it. They also seem to think that if you don't have any food, you have no business being were they are, and they will honk and hiss at you. I have been full out assaulted by Canadian Geese as well. And beyond that, they shit everywhere. Which makes it a little uncomfortable to spread a picnic blanket, or sit on the ground while out fishing. But they are kind of a neat looking bird, and there is a ton of them, so it makes them an easy target for the camera lens.

    Then I an across this Red Eared Slider. It was just chillin' on top of the reeds. It was just a little tiny one, it could have easily fit in the palm of my hand, and probably would have had a little room to crawl around. I didn't try to catch him though. I prefer to leave things be. I'm not one of those don't disturb nature people, and I've been known to catch a creature or two, but most of the time I leave things be. I've handled enough critters to be petty happy with just looking most of the time.

   I really expected to see more frogs. Well, let me rephrase... I expected I would be able to take more pictures of frogs. I saw a lot of frogs, the problem was they kept seeing me first. They were literally spotting me from more than fifty feet away, and the only way I was spotting them is when they called out their warning... Preeep, and then plop as they jumped in the water and were gone. I saw about ten frogs jump in the water were I took this picture. I had to sit and wait very still and quiet for what seemed like about ten minutes for them to start resurfacing. Then when I lifted my camera... Preep...plop...gone. I waited another ten minutes with my camera held in the ready position so I wouldn't have to move if one resurfaced again. I got these pictures and had enough of frog hunting. There were a ton of tadpoles too, but they blended in with the bottom of the pond too well and I wasn't able to get good clear pictures of them.

   When I am walking around a new peace of water I always look for signs of fish. When I first started walking around this pond, there was no sign of fish anywhere. I didn't see any nests, no minnows, no ripples on the water surface, nothing... In the twenty minutes to a half an hour that I was completely focused on getting a picture of that frog something happened. When I stood back up there were thousands of goldfish that had materialized out of seemingly nowhere. It was weird, the entire weed line around the whole pond was blanketed with them. They were not there twenty minutes before, I would have seen them.

    These next few shots were just some random pictures from the day. The first is a picture of the swamp from in the woods. The picture doesn't give the sense of being in some creepy B movie like being there did but I still liked the picture. The next is of a muskrat lodge, I did look around for the rat, but he never made an appearance. And there were deer tracks everywhere, if you found a spot that didn't have any grass, there were deer tracks. The pond was surrounded by them, and there were some highway style game trails coming out of several places from the surrounding woods.

   Then I came upon these Mallard Ducks. There were three of them, a male and two females. They were the only creatures on the pond that didn't seem to mind me being there. They couldn't have cared less actually. They let me walk right up to them. I got some really good pictures of them, and even some macro shots of their feathers, but I think I'll save most of those for another post...
   Instead, I'll share a couple of pictures from the highlight of my day. Where there are deer tracks, there are bound to be deer...

  I actually left for a while. I went out again later to get these pictures of the deer. Since then I have been mowing and tilling, it's that time of year. Everyone is getting their yards cleaned up, and their gardens ready for planting. I get pretty busy this time of year. I am off now to till another garden. But it is a gorgeous day, and I think I'll pack my ultralight, maybe I'll have enough time and energy for another adventure on my way home.