Tagged With: Redgate Park

Under the Pines

Pine Cones and Needles

Pine Cones and Needles

Cathy and I went out for a walk around Redgate park today, making a circuit of the entire former-golf course. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, although we did see a great blue heron at a pond and quite a few Canada geese. There were, as usual, lot of little birds in the bushes at the edges of the woods and in the dried weeds that now fill most of the old fairways. We are pretty sure some were bluebirds but beyond that we didn’t really identify any. Almost certainly many were sparrows.

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Milkweed Pods

Milkweed Pods

Milkweed Pods

We took a nice walk in Redgate Park today. The fall color has started but it isn’t really in full ‘bloom’ yet. I did get some nice photos of Carolina horsenettle (Solanum carolinense), American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) leaves which were a deep purple-red, and some pretty, peeling birch bark. Of course there were a few general scenery photos. We saw a heron at one of the ponds but were not anywhere near close enough to get a worthwhile photo and I wasn’t carrying my new, long lens. I got some photos of non-native and invasive plants, as well. These included the dreaded mile-a-minute vine (Persicaria perfoliata), Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii), which is found throughout our woods, and porcelain berry (Ampelopsis glandulosa var. brevipedunculata), an Asian vine in the same family as the grape. The milkweed pods in this photo, probably (Asclepias syriaca), were really nice, though, so I thought I’d go with them for the walk’s featured photo.

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Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

We went to Redgate Park, formerly Redgate Golf Course, this afternoon. We took Margo with us, which made taking pictures a little harder. Also, I had my camera set to manual exposure control and the setting were all wrong, so this photo was almost ruinously washed out. Because I shoot in RAW format, I was able to salvage it, though, so at least it’s an easily identifiable bird. This is an eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus), which is fairly common here, but not easily seen, as they tend to be somewhat secretive. This one was on the ground under some pine trees and stayed there long enough for me to get ten shots, but unfortunately it wasn’t until just after the last of them that I noticed my settings were wrong.

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