April Weekends 2006
The weekend of April 23rd, 2006
The 22nd was a rainy indoor day.
This American Bittern was near the pond below Brookside Nature Center!
The wild azaleas are starting to bloom in the woods around the nature center
And there are Trilliums in bloom
The naturalist presents a snake
They dumped bees from the box (top of picture) into this observation hive.
The hive is on display at Brookside Nature Center.
Here is the queen of that hive, marked with a white dot.
David kindly made her pose for the photographer.
The hive normally sits up-right, like this.
Don't worry - they screwed the door shut.
The bees get in and out through a tunnel to the outside.
And here is a Crow chasing off a Red-Tailed Hawk, seen from our back yard
late in the day.
The weekend of April 15th and 16th, 2006
(A good time to be outside.)
It will help viewing this page to have it set to full screen. A number of the pictures are set to be shown side-by-side.Keep scrolling down to see all the pictures.
A warning to those who don't want to even see a snake - the very last picture, after the bright red tulip is of a small snake.
This little plant, a mayapple, is the source of the toxin used to make etoposide -
allowing Albert to spend time out in the woods with Brady taking all these pictures.
After that, let's start with the most dramatic photo of the weekend:
A Barred Owl taking off.
Two more shots, all in bad light. Can you see the legs of the frog it caught?
Those were on Saturday. On Sunday we saw the Barred Owl again:
This time with a small rodent.
Look at those talons!
While walking about
We saw some other birds:
An Eastern Bluebird
Several Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers
Lots of Tree Swallows
We stopped and watched this Great-Blue Heron for a while.
And it watched the turtle.
It spent some time grooming.
It was very curious when some people went by on horseback.
Then it got all shy on us.
We saw many beautiful flowers at Brookside.
So many things are in bloom now!
We also saw a little Garter Snake.
It was off the boardwalk between the gardens and the nature center, so no fear of anyone stepping on it!
All photographs Copyright 2006 by Albert Hartley. Even the larger images here are reduced, so if you want an electronic copy or reprint please contact Albert.