I got up around 7:00 am today, and headed out to the Effie Yeaw Nature Preserve.  It was 38° and overcast outside when I got there, and sunny and 51° when I left.

At the nature preserve, I somehow accidentally put my camera on a “small image” setting, so I lost some of the resolution in the photos.  That’s so irritating.  It doesn’t tell you when it’s switched from large to mall, and the only way I know it’s been altered is by looking at the number of available photos (tiny number in the upper right corner of the view finder).  But I still managed to get some fairly good shots.

The first thing I saw was the Mule Deer buck with the wonky antlers (the tips bend backwards; make him very distinctive). That was a nice way to start my walk.  I ended up seeing dozens of deer along the trail, including about six bucks.  There was one place on the trail where I was watching two of the big bucks walking out from a stand of trees and while I’m taking photos of them, a guy comes up behind me on the trail.  He watched me take photos for a little while and then said quietly, “Did you see the one right behind you?”  I turned around and found a huge buck just sitting there in the grass looking right at me.  Hah!  I’m so observant.

At another point on the trail I came across an Acorn Woodpecker that was stashing stuff under the bark of an old scag of a tree.  As I approached, the bird made it clear he didn’t want me near “his” tree, and clung to the bark chattering angrily at me and raising his head feathers.  I got a little video of that.

I watched a gull trying to get the last morsels out of a salmon skeleton, and several Wild Turkeys “in strut”.  One posed for me so I got some close-ups of his face.  And I also saw Northern Flickers, Mallards, Wood Ducks, Goldeneye Ducks, Bufflehead, Herring Gulls, Ring-Billed Gulls, Spotted Sandpiper, Red-Shouldered Hawk, and a Scrub Jay taking a bath in a pond.  It was a good “nature morning”.

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I walked for about 3 hours and then headed home.