While on a customer visit last week at work I drove by this park's entrance, and decided to mark it down for a visit. Come Saturday, the sun was out, the weather nice, the camera charged, and the motorcycle filled up. Everything's ready!
I was carrying my D7000, with the 70-300 ED VR for most of these, and the 18-55 for the wide shots.
A couple of scenes along the trail:
I heard about 23 quajillion birds, caught glimpses of maybe three. While looking around and up for a bird I could tell was close, I almost walked into:
The web was really weird looking, with an upper piece kind of diagonally oriented, in the upper half of this image, and the lower section completely vertical. You can see the spider (Golden Silk Orb Weaver) at the bottom center.
What I didn't see until I got the images on the screen at home, was that the Golden Silk had built its web hanging from another spider's web! Here's the Venusta Orchard Spider that is apparently the other one's landlord:
A bit further down the trail, the same thing happens again. I'm circling around looking for a bird I can hear, and almost walk into:
Another Venusta Orchard, wrapping up a still-struggling ant.
I walked around to get the sun on another side, and when I got there the spider was gone, but I found a wasp in the web:
I thought it was stuck, too, but a few seconds of wingbeats and it was free. It stole the ant, which it finished off on this nearby twig. The "Hey, you gonna eat that?" bully from school days!
This thing skittered across the path in front of me and was hard to find. I used a flash as this was in deep shadow. Fence lizard:
I was moving to the start of another trail and encountered this six-lined racerunner. It's easily identifiable by the, um.... well, by the six lines. (And by the huge fourth toe on the hind feet.)
A 3-frame stitch of what had been an artificial lake. The park service has demolished the dam and is restoring this to its natural streambed configuration. The lake was called Puddinhead Lake, and I think they just decided that no feature with such a stupid name could be allowed to persist.
Another fence lizard along that second trail. Ugly little scaly bugger!
I was able to follow this guy for a bit, but never had a very clear shot. I think it's a Carolina Chickadee, based on what little I can see of its head.
Gulf Fritillary, very common year-round here:
Red-Bellied Woodpecker. I actually saw two of them flying around together, but this one is the only one that posed for me.