Once the magic smoke comes out, things don't work any more.
John Kasunich
jmkasunich@fastmail.fm
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Sat, 02 Aug 2008
I took a break from my grinder reconditioning project and went to the North Chagrin MetroPark this evening. I spotted some thistles blooming along the path to the pond:
In the sunny area next to the pond, milkweed pods are getting ripe - soon they'll break open and the seeds will float away.
The pond itself is just about covered with lily pads, and their flowers are starting to bloom.
There is a "resident" blue heron who usually hangs out on the side of the pond that is least accessible from land. It is far enough from the walkway across the pond that you can't realy get a good look at him. When I arrived he was in his usual spot, but just as it was starting to get dark, he went flying across the pond. I shot several pics as he went by, but light, focus, and all the other factors were against me. The best one is this blurry shot of him skimming over the lilypads.
Once he got to the other side of the pond he started hunting. That area is much more accessible, and I slowly and quietly got as close as I could, before shooting these photos.
He caught something at least three times while I watched, including what I think is a frog in the following picture. The photo is blurry because he was tossing his head back to swallow it. By this time it was quite dim, and my shutter speed was down to about 1/8 second. The only reason the three pics above aren't blurry is because a hunting heron stands very still.
As the heron walked through the water I moved to a better vantage point. That's when I noticed another pond resident I've never seen there before. A beaver was a few feet in front of the heron, munching on lilypads.
(posted: 02 Aug 2008 23:37) (permalink)