Evening Wanderings of the Bag Lady

 
Good thing Chuck says he likes going on my walks with me (virtually speaking- he lives over 100 miles away), because I tend to look rather marginal. I leave the house pretty much ok, but almost always return with a bag full of bottles and cans.


I did walk later than usual today. After work I did errands and came home and ate. The morning's gray and rain gave way to a nice mild evening, so I decided to take a different road loop that would get me the full five miles today. It's not a loop I usually walk, so I saw different things. I think I need to walk it more often because there are several interesting wetland areas.

However, the first novelty was a very wooly sheep who was quite curious about me. I think she needs shearing soon!



Sharing the same space with her were several good-looking chickens.



One of the things I love most about spring is watching the trees begin to color up before the leaves appear. Weeping willows turn yellow. This one looks great behind last year's corn stubble and contrasting with the pines.



And here's another miniature world waiting to be explored. Are the islands inhabitable, or are they the dangerous places with the brown plains between the better spaces?



Best of all, passing one of the wetlands, I saw three ducks. Too far to see what kind, but sometimes if I can get a picture an ID is possible later on the computer. One of the ducks was by itself, and I caught a shot of it, and then they all took off with an amazing cacophony of squealings and squawkings. If I were a good birder, I would have known right then what they were. As it was, I only knew they weren't any of the ducks that quack! (And for language lovers, squeal, squawk and quack is an interesting collection of words, don't you think?)

Sure enough, as soon as I opened the picture, I realized I'd learned this duck before. This is a female wood duck. Sure wish I'd gotten a picture of the other two. But, even so, it's the best picture I've gotten of a female, and it's a good reason to walk that loop again. You can see the blue patch on her side and the rows of spots below that. And now I'll remember what they sound like!



Getting in shape! Thanks for coming along.

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