Magic Smoke
   


Once the magic smoke comes out, it won't work any more.

John Kasunich
jmkasunich@fastmail.fm
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Sat, 28 Jul 2007

North Chagrin Metropark

I took a nice walk in the North Chagrin Metropark this evening. I started at the parking lot on SOM Center Road across from Parkview, and walked east along a paved path. A hundred yards or so in I watched a pair of deer wandering to the northwest. Unfortunately by the time I got the camera out they were getting too deep into the brush to get decent pics. After another hundred yards or so I turned southeast onto a smaller path through dense woods, which crossed this creek...

Then the path went across a stretch of fairly open meadow toward the pond/swamp. Found some nice plants around the pond...

And some others in the pond...

Plants weren't the only thing in the pond. Wood and Mallard ducks were swimming around, seemingly oblivious to the relatively large crowds of people.

Since I came in the "back way" I was rather surprised at how many people were around the pond. Then I found out that the park was having a Nature at Night event. Lots of kids walking around with little blinking lights hanging around their necks. As the light faded, bats started flying around eating bugs. I know better than to even try to capture bats in flight with a camera in dim light, so I just relaxed and enjoyed watching them fly. Some were very bold, flying below head height and only a few feet away.

As part of the event, there were rangers at various locations talking about and in some cases showing various night critters. One ranger had a screech owl, about 10 years old. It was too dark to capture it by natural light, but after asking if it was OK to use a flash, I took one shot:

(posted: 28 Jul 2007 23:52) (permalink)