Every year I am amazed at how quickly and suddenly the foliage at Radnor Lake – and all over, for that matter – occurs, and hiking at Radnor Lake in the spring is a marvel to behold. It really is!

The leaves are already more than halfway out, and a carpet of small white wildflowers coats the floor of the woods on either side of the South Cove Loop trail. I cannot help but take more photographs despite the hundreds of pictures I already have from springs past.

Springtime at Radnor Lake is wonderful for bird-watchers as well, what with all the birds on their migratory routes back north. Dozens of species of birds can only be seen here in Nashville, Tennessee during their migration in the spring and fall, including more types of warblers than I could possibly identify – especially considering I have enough trouble identifying a warbler as it is!

A particularly wonderful Radnor Lake hike took place on April 4, 2010 with my friend Steve D. We parked at the church, as we usually do when we expect parking to be at a premium due to both the glorious weather as well as the apparent exploding popularity of Radnor Lake. We in Nashville, Tennessee are indeed lucky to have such a natural area.

Steve and I typically hike the south end of Radnor Lake; we walk from the church to the west Radnor parking lot, take the spillway trail to the bridge, then walk down the gravel road on top of the dam back to Otter Creek road, and quickly arrive at the western South Cove trailhead. We hike uphill to the top of the ridge and then down the steeper side, then circle back along the South Lake trail. It is a fairly short loop, but there are far fewer hikers on the south side than the lake side. This arguably increases our chances of wildlife sightings and photo opportunities.

The water level of the lake is still relatively high, streaming over the spillway to create beautiful cascades in Otter Creek, cascades that are out of reach for photographers who remain on the trail (this includes us, of course). I often wish there was not so much foliage hiding these Otter Creek cascades; the photos would be great.

The turtles are back out in full force, often taking up all available space on a given waterlogged log, especially if it is in the sun. It is not unusual to count ten or more Red-Eared Sliders on a single log.

The first thing I noticed after we started out on the South Cove trail was the almost complete coverage of the forest floor by small white wildflowers, which I already mentioned but felt compelled to mention again!

But the pinnacle of this Radnor Lake hike was our sighting of a medium-sized Barred Owl. Apparently, the Barred Owl – when compared to the other local owls like the Great Horned Owl and the Screech Owl, I believe – are more likely to be out and about during the daylight hours, and seem to be less wary of passing hikers. Whether this is a fact or not I am unsure; perhaps it just seems that way.

Even though Steve and I were more than a dozen yards apart while trudging up the incline to the ridge, we both spotted the Barred Owl at the same time; the movement caught our eye when the owl flew from the ground, where it was apparently hunting, to a low limb of a nearby tree.

We probably could have made a good photo session out of this had the owl remained on that branch, but then it flew towards us and perched on a large branch of a fallen, dead tree, as if begging to be photographed. This was perfect, as Steve – the photographer that he is – had brought his tripod and expensive camera. All I had was my trusty digital camera, an Olympus Stylus 790 SW, which I chose from the glut of available digital cameras for its slim size, large screen, its water resistance, and its shock resistance. This is all the camera I seem to need, though, at least for now.

The Barred Owl remained on the dead limb long enough for us to get all the shots we wanted, which turned out to be dozens and dozens of photos. We both know from experience that one might as well take advantage of the digital age and take too many rather than too few photographs, because some of them are bound to be blurry or otherwise no good.

The owl turned out to be the primary subject of our photos on this hike, although I did get quite a few great shots of other various points of interest, mainly the light streaming down upon the aforementioned carpet of white flowers. And while moss is generally not too interesting, the way the light played on one patch of common moss made this another photo op.

Having been in bed from around dawn until 2pm, I did not make the final decision to hike until 3:30pm. (No, I was not out on the town. I was not even out. My circadian rhythm is off.) As usual, I am very glad I chose to hit the trails today.

Friend and fellow hiker Steve D. phoned me on his way to Radnor Lake, so I made it a personal challenge to catch up to him after his 15-minute head start. Fortunately, Steve was delayed by a clogged parking lot on the east side; he turned around and drove to the west side (off Granny White Pike) and parked at the old Otter Creek church building. Had it not been for that, I’d definitely have hiked solo today.

Although I wanted to catch up with Steve, I did not forgo my standard photography. There are several very specific pictures I take each and every time I hike at Radnor Lake. There are a few reasons for this, but the most potentially interesting purpose for accumulating specific shots over time is a future time-lapse photography experiment. More on that later.

I guessed that I would first glimpse Steve hiking up the very steep section leading to Ganier Ridge; that should slow him down significantly, I surmised. But when I reached that area, he was nowhere to be seen. At that point, I no longer expected to catch up with him; however, I spotted him around the first bend on the ridge. Success! Company! Conversation!

When I finally caught up with Steve, he was photographing a couple of does by the Ganier memorial landmark up on Ganier Ridge. He mentioned seeing an owl earlier, then proved it by showing me three pictures he had taken of this magnificent bird of prey; Steve had gotten fairly close to it, so his pictures turned out to be among the best, highest-resolution Barred Owl shots anyone has yet sent to me to consider for inclusion on these websites. Great shots, Steve!

It was a lively hike with Steve today. We had lots to talk about, it seemed, and there was very little quiet time. Sometimes hiking with a friend is full of banter from start to finish, and sometimes very little is said for the entire duration of the hike; most of my hikes with friends fall somewhere in-between. The hike we had today was definitely as much a social experience as it was a cardiovascular one.

I must have finally caught up on my sleep, for I was in quite a good mood – so much so, in fact, that I decided to try to elicit a smile from every hiker going the opposite direction. Yeah, I know; how cheesy! This challenge of fetching smiles from passersby must be something I heard on one of those “be-the-best-you-can-be” type audio programs I often listened to in my 20s. Was it Brian Tracy, perhaps, or was it a Buddhist thing? I know it wasn’t Tony Robbins; he was always a bit much for me. Anyway, I forgot about spreading smiles to strangers once I had caught up to Steve.

In contrast to this afternoon’s mood of elation, there are days when I actually avoid the eye contact of all other hikers. Fortunately, those low times are few and far between these days; yet, I may remain slightly envious of those few people who appear to be ensconced in a perpetually, genuinely jovial state of mind!

Doe were everywhere today, though there was still no sign of the grotesquely injured deer Mike and I saw a few weeks ago. Families and other small groups of hikers, especially those with children, stopped frequently to admire and photograph the foraging does (which all well and good — as long as they do not block the trail). Frequent hikers often gradually cease to acknowledge – or even notice — the deer, they are such standard fixtures of Radnor Lake State Park. It seems I have gotten out of the habit of counting the deer as I hike, for some reason. Perhaps it is due to the fact that friend and fellow hiker Mike E. counted 35 deer on a single hike at Radnor Lake one day last week, and I think my record is in the low 20s. (Have I given up? Surely not!)

Before I knew it, dusk had arrived; it was time to head back. Steve and I parted ways as he chose to take the road back to Granny White and I chose to take the South Lake Trail. In my mind, given the following, I still had plenty of legal hiking time:

• the full 4.5 miles usually takes around 1.5 hours
• I began my hike a little after 3pm
• sunset would not occur until 5:22pm
• unofficially, “dark” is thirty minutes after sunset (where did I hear this?)

So I was surprised to see that, upon my return, the west parking lot was completely empty, except for a huge pile of great-smelling xmas tree mulch; the gates were closed and locked. A quick look at my notes uncovered the error in my thinking: I had started my hike closer to 4pm than 3pm. No wonder it was getting dark so fast! This is the first time ever — in my rich and varied history of hiking at Radnor Lake – to see the gates locked. It’s another personal Radnor Lake first, though perhaps one of the very least interesting ones.

This evening’s hike was yet another unique experience. It was fantastic! I’ll say it again: nature remains full of surprises, regardless of how often I return to the same location to hike again and again, year after year!

As I write, the movie Transformers is on. Not bad: lots of exciting action, interesting special effects, and beautiful female actors, especially the blue-eyed brunette.

I parked in the nearby church parking lot even though I doubted I would still be hiking after official closing time (“dark”). I’m sure glad I did: I returned to the car sometime after 8pm, and it was definitely dark by anyone’s judgment. Anyway, Lawyer Fred called as I walked from the Granny White Market – formerly known as the Purple Cow – and we talked about our web project Atlanta DUI / marijuana legal services website until I lost service near the hill.

As soon as I started walking up the Otter Creek road hill, I heard multiple barred owls close by. A minute later a barred owl flew from the area below the dam across the road to the south side and perched in a tree. It was hooting along with a couple of others, and one of them was making a sound I had never heard from an owl. Barred owls seem to have a wide range of sounds – far more than I would ever have guessed. I was able to get a couple of decent shots before they disappeared into the forest.

Strolled to the South Cove trailhead and trudged up along the ridge…

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

With my eyes on the South Cove trail I walked, when my attention was drawn to movement; I glanced up and to the right to see a large bird flying silently only a few feet above.  The large owl landed in the crotch of a very young tree — a place that I would never have guessed held any interest for such a large bird. 

This was great; the tree was only ten feet off the trail, the bird maybe ten feet from the ground; I was ten yards back. (I realize this story sounds made up, what with all the tens; but true it is.)  I was able to stand there for several minutes and admire this creature, with its huge head and very large eyes.  There was something human about it, it seemed. 

I proceeded slowly along the trail, wondering how close it would let me get.  After only a few steps, it flew ahead, along the trail, and lighted on the branch of a large tree — a place that I definitely would have guessed held  interest for such a large bird.  This spot was higher up than the last and not on the trail side of the tree, so it was not as easily observable.  After a few more moments, I continued on toward the steepest climb on the Radnor trails, completely satisfied with my wildlife encounter.

Resource: owl sounds at Learner.org