WALKING IN THE COUNTY PARK

Dickie and I went for our morning walk today out in the county park on the west side of Windsor. It's a bit of a trip for us (about six miles out), but it's well worth it. Today we saw several large blue herons (ardea herodias). They make their nests in the large redwoods on the west end of the park where they also make a good deal of noise. One hiker told us that, when he first heard them some years ago, he thought they sounded like a bunch of monkeys and wondered what they were doing in this part of the world.

The great blue heron is much larger than most herons. The adult stands more than three feet tall and has a wing spread of about six feet. I caught this one below as he was fishing at the water's edge today:

We're still keeping tabs on our latest killdeer nest, too. The nest now has four eggs, the usual number in a killdeer nest, and is about two weeks old, so in another two weeks we should have some more baby killdeers running around the local school yard. Here's a picture I took of one of the birds standing next to the nest:

We picked up some trekking poles from a local sports shop recently. They do make it easier for people our age to get up and down the hills. My doctor suggested it would be good exercise for the upper body, too. That can't hurt.