Today, after spending a refreshing night in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, I went to Side Cut Metro Park near Toledo, Oh. This park was way more suburban than the park I visited yesterday. It was packed with families cooking out and laying out in the warm sun. We had pretty much perfect weather today so I can see why it was so busy.
Part of the park was in the form of an island in the middle of a river. On the map there were no formal trails on it so this was where I wanted to check out. I was able to get to the island by using stepping stones in the creek bed. It was pretty dried out too though so that helped a lot.
Once on the other side I did a rough loop around the island looking for and taking pictures of wildlife. I saw lots of geese, ducks, herons and other birds looking for fish and bugs in the water.
On the other side of the island was a bunch of fisherman fishing in the faster flowing areas of the river. After my loop I went to the center of the island and saw 2 deer feeding in the brush.
After that I went back and chilled in my van and snacked on some jerky while the sun was at its highest point in the sky. After that I went on one of the longer hiking trails to see what critters I could find.
Here they are:
A Red Squirrel
A few really tame Deer.
So pretty much just the squirrel and a bunch of deer. But I also found something that, to me, was pretty much like finding gold......
A DEER ANTLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah it's just a little one, but hey I was totally not expecting to find it, especially in such a densely populated urban area.
So it was a pretty good day. I am getting sick of these tiny little parks filled to capacity with soccer mom's and school kids. I'm ready for the big guns. I want miles and miles of untouched wilderness. Full of game and berry patches and lacking on the human inhabitants. I want to walk on a trail (or off-trail really) for several hours and not see any sign of another person except for maybe airplane contrails against a beautiful clear blue sky.
Bring it on Michigan! I'm waiting for you.
Bring back some squirrel meat ;) KIDDING
ReplyDelete-Little Sissy