Now that the summer heat has set in, hiking early in the morning is an even better idea than usual. I hit the Radnor Lake hiking trails at 7:45am, wondering how I could possibly have forgotten my iPod. Thanks to the iPod, personal growth, idea generation and evolution, and a deepening of insight all occur at an unprecedented rate these days, for during most hikes, I listen to my audiobook collection, the majority of which is nonfiction and intensely interesting to me these days.

Having no iPod today put into play a series of events that made this hike so unique: I would have made different/ less social decisions during my walk, and I would not have been as alert for the amazing wildlife photo ops that seemed to materialize every few yards.

During the hike and immediately following, my intention was to devote a significant portion of my afternoon writing about it all and documenting every wondrous detail, but my attention tends to drift quite a lot. The material is still fresh, thanks in part to the 101 photos and movies I took during this morning’s hike. I am going to split this into several posts; if I do not do so – were I to delay posting this until completion — it would never appear.

Starting in the Granny White parking lot, I walked up Otter Creek and then turned left onto the gravel road to take some pictures from specific locations which I will use later to create some time lapse imagery.

Before I’d even made it to the spillway bridge, I saw a turtle on its way back to the lake; I closely observed, followed, and photographed a family of Canada Geese as they ate duck weed and then groomed themselves; and I relaxed on bench #66 for some journaling.

Crossing the spillway bridge, I admired a cute young turtle sunning itself on the dam, and an adult turtle in the water underneath the bridge, apparently heading downstream. I suppose that is why I see some of these turtles later, crossing the gravel road to get back to the lake; they’ve gone down the spillway dam into the creek and downstream.

Moments later I saw a mother doe and her very young fawn standing in the middle of the trail a few yards ahead. More skittish than usual due to having young, when they saw me, they went in opposite directions: the fawn went right and the doe went left. The three day-old fawn was alone. Rather than venture between them, I watched for a moment as the fawn wobbled back across the trail toward its mother on its long, unsteady legs. I started walking again, slowly, and was a little surprised that the fawn had not found its way back to mother yet, but was still standing near the trail, in thick brush, terrified of me, apparently; this made a couple of fantastically cute photos of the lone fawn.

Next of note was the viewing platform with two benches ( I need to come up with a name for this thing). I approached the bench, your honor, and peered over the railing, looking for the new resident eagles. Although I could not be 100% certain, I saw what I believe to be one of the eagles as it soared into the cove – Eagle Cove, yes? I thought I was going to see it snare a fish with its talons, but not this time.

Waiting for the eagle to fly back to its traditional perching area (for the last month or so, anyway), I met Cyndy, another hiker. Herons were seen but not the unmistakable white feathered head I was hoping for.

A few more yards bore another mother doe, fawning over another virtual newborn – a bit too far off the trail for good pictures, though.

If you are one of the people I met on the trails of Radnor Lake today, I sure hope you will read this post and then take the time to leave a comment below. I really would appreciate that, as I am trying to attract more visitors to this site and need all the comments I can get. May we meet again one day. Happy trails!

(More is being written…please check back.)

After reading a few pages of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, I looked up and saw trusty Kelly drive into the Granny White parking lot at Radnor Lake, right on time. It had been a few weeks since our last hike, making this outing all the better.

The first thing we noticed was water actually spilling over the spillway. For months, the water had barely been within a foot of the dam. Radnor Lake has finally reached its normal levels for the first time since the drought took it down a few notches.

(NOTE: Progress on the writing of this post would be more notable if tonight’s new episode of the award-winning TNT show The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick, were not entertaining me so very thoroughly. This show just keeps getting better and better!)

The first sighting gave us two new proximity records. Kelly pointed out a couple of Canada geese (a.k.a. Canadian geese) standing on a half-submerged log near the edge of the lake. Not that it’s any big deal, but this was the closest we have gotten to Canada geese since this blog — and thus our amateur recordkeeping — began in July of this year. They were about 25 feet away.

As I gazed at the geese, Kelly commented on a third waterfowl that was even closer than the geese. I did not, could not see any other bird. Embarrassingly, almost a minute passed before I was able to see what the kell Helly was pointing at.

To my delight (yep, I’m a nature geek), it was a great blue heron, with its neck so contracted it appeared to be neckless. In this scrunched form, it did not have the traditional heron chic. I noted that in this position, the great blue had the same shape as the green heron, which usually do not have their necks extended when I see them around Radnor Lake. A few seconds later, the great blue heron stood tall and looked like a great blue heron should. We marvelled at it for a few moments, then continued our hike.

Only a few short yards later, I noticed a few turtles sunning themselves on a couple of other nearby half-submerged logs. It had been near freezing last night, and was only 40 at the time, so I thought it interesting that these cold-blooded reptiles were out and about. On second thought, though, it has been rather warm lately, so I guess I should not have been surprised.

I watched the radar closely throughout the day, thrilled by the rain and hoping for a break in the precipitation near dusk. Weather.com‘s interactive weather map has (in beta) a fantastic radar featuring a Google Maps-like zoom, which allows you to determine which neighborhoods are getting the rain. I left the house before 6pm and headed for Radnor Lake even though the rain had just started again; thanks to a radar closeup of the area, I knew it was a very small band of rain that would be gone by the time I arrived.

It seems like only yesterday when sunset occurred locally at around 7:30; it has already shifted to 7:04, which is why I was caught a little off guard at the speedy encroachment of darkness while still atop Ganier Ridge. Hiking in the dark was great! There were four other cars in the Granny White parking lot when I returned at 7:35, and one of the Radnor Lake park rangers pulled up in a white pickup just as I was getting in my car; so make a note, avid hikers: it seems the general rule for parking lot closure is 30 minutes past sunset.

There was the sound of rain throughout the first leg of my hike, falling from the leaves instead of the clouds. It was nice. Small plants that had been badly wilted before were now either healthy and green or completely dead. All living things out there are surely rejoicing for the rain in their own way.

The first sighting of note was a large pileated woodpecker, which first I heard but did not see. I did not recognize the call. Then I briefly saw it — where the irregular canopy allowed — fly toward the trunk of an oak. I did not make an identification until I heard the pecking; I paused to look for it, and then it lighted in just the right spot to create a silhouette, after which there was no doubt as to its pileated-ness.

There were eight deer sightings by the time I finished the South Cove trail and emerged onto Otter Creek Road. I paused to observe the two or three deer that were very close to the trail, taking out my iPod earbuds to get the full effect. It’s great to be so near the deer that you can hear them breathing, snorting, crunching on acorns, chewing leaves…it just seemed wrong to be listening to a psychology podcast while in such close proximity!

By hike’s end, I had counted fourteen (14) deer. One new observation for me regarding deer: as tame as they are when there is plenty of daylight, the deer seem much more skittish and wild in lower light conditions. Actually, that makes perfect sense; I am more skittish when in the woods at night.

There was a great blue heron standing in the water near the edge of the lake in the same spot as before, near the wood rail fence. Dusk was at hand and all I could see was the great blue heron’s silhouette, slender and still as it was wary of my presence. Would have made a nice photo.

There was a chorus of owls. It was great. On the South Cove side, there were two owls in the distance calling to one another, and this lasted just about the entire span of the South Cove portion of the hike, from the long uphill straightaway near the west trailhead, all the way to my emergence onto Otter Creek Road halfway through the hike.

After it was virtually dark, there were at least three owls really getting vocal on the lake side. They reminded me of a pack of wolves howling in the distance, except it was not plaintive but somehow urgent. One owl in particular sounded unlike any I can remember hearing; apparently, there is quite a range of Barred Owl vocalizations. (Or great horned owls…or whatever owls.) In fact, I had just been thinking of a Radnor Lake ghost story — the appearance of a long missing woman, presumed murdered by her husband years ago and dumped in the Radnor Lake area — so I was a little creeped out. This owl frenzy was the spooky icing on the cake.

Resources Used/Found While Writing This Post

Interesting resource for southeastern birds: www.flmnh.ufl.edu/birds/sephotos/bp29.htm

There are some beautiful nature photos at http://www.wunderground.com/blog/NorthLight/comment.html?entrynum=0&tstamp=200601

More about whitetail deer: www.nwtrek.org/page.php?id=287

and: http://fwp.mt.gov/fieldguide/detail_AMALC02020.aspx

There were two other semi-noteworthy wildlife sightings. First, just before we noticed the heron, I pointed out a juvenile five-lined skink sunning itself on the wooden fence. (I am somewhat of a herpetologist, and I am a big fan of all reptiles and amphibians.) And second, the deer count: a paltry two (yes, 2).

However, the overall hike easily ranked at four out of five stars. I was in the presence of Kelly Stewart, the energy level was good, my mood was good, there was water a-plenty, it was only in the mid-nineties, and the conversation was lively and interesting (thanks to Kelly and BarCamp Nashville).

I tooky my REI hydrating system this time — something I had gotten out of the habit of for a long time due to a leaky bladder (that is, the plastic bladder which holds the water in CamelBaks and other hydration systems). I had forgotten how nice it is to have as much cold water as I care to drink during my hikes. My nature-green backpack is designed around the water storage and delivery, but there is plenty of room for other things; I had an extra bottle of water for Kelly, who ended up bringing his own water, so we stuck that in there, too.

We hiked at a brisk pace. There were only two brief water breaks – one at each of the two most difficult climbs, relatively speaking. When we made it back to the parking lot, Kelly checked his watch and his pedometer: we hiked the 4.5-mile loop in 1:19, which is our record — in just under 9,000 steps.