Sunday, February 12, 2006
Wildfowl Trust of North America 01-22-06
URL to Album:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meabbott/sets/72157611539355868/
The Chesapeake Environmental Center run by the Wildfowl Trust of North America (map) is another excellent place to visit. They have a variety of different kinds of scenery from beach to wetlands to pine stands and so on. The main attraction here is the birds and there are plenty of them. When you arrive you go to their visitor center to pay the $5 entry fee (they could use better signage since I nearly walked past it). It has a big window on a pond which had geese, swans and ducks when I was there. The visitor center also has some exhibits and they had what I would call a scoreboard where they were keeping track of sightings of various kinds of birds. They also have other attractions nearby in a fenced in area such as an aviary (under repair and no birds were in it) and some “raptor mews” which contains non-releasable birds of prey (usually due to injury). One mew had a pair of owls and the other a pair of Bald Eagles. I didn’t take pictures of them because the fencing prohibited good pictures, but you can see them quite well.
I was given a map of the facilities at the visitor center and I was able to plan my visit with it. I went first to the boardwalk over the wetlands. It has an observation tower (see the structure in the image to the left) roughly a third of the way out onto the wetlands and it provides a nice view. I would find two more observation towers on the park. There wasn’t a lot to observe from this area besides the scenery. Back down on the boardwalk I saw some small ponds in the wetlands area that have little minnow like fish in them. And the end of one leg of the boardwalk you wind up on the beach. There is a beach river there that was seemed to be draining water back into the bay that had come up during high tide. A variety of interesting patterns are present in the sand here.
After this I walked East along Lake Knapp to the Northern end of their Marshy Creek Trail. Along the way I saw a large crane like bird coming in for a landing. It was so large and so close I forgot how to use my camera and didn’t get any pictures of it before it disappeared out of view behind the vegetation. There are two features in this area. There’s a canoe landing which is a boardwalk over the wetland that angles down to the water at the end. This is a good viewing location and I got a few pictures from here. There’s another observation tower here as well. There were no birds in view of the tower here, either, but as with the previous tower it is a very scenic view. From here I went back South along the Marshy Creek Trail to the East Blind that looks over Lake Knapp. There are two duck blinds here, the West Blind (White Blind) was closed for repairs. This is an excellent spot to view the birds on Lake Knapp.
From there I walked through the Hummock Loop Trail. There wasn’t much to see in there, but it shows the diversity of scenery on the island. It was pleasant and quiet. Next I walked to the South Meadow loop. I imagine there will be more to see here in the summer, but again, it was pleasant and quiet. I walked back south to the Piney Point path and peeked in the Woodland Pond, no birds. So I kept walking. Now, when I walk through wooded areas, I tend to stop every few feet and look around to see if I can spot something interesting. After one of these stops, I did my looking around and didn’t notice anything and took one step. I cracked a branch and about 25 or 30 feet away from me a small deer went bounding into the woods. It went so fast I didn’t have time to remember I had a camera with me. At the end of this trail there was another observation tower. More of a platform than a tower, but it was high enough to see above the vegetation and get a nice view of the surroundings. On the way back to my van I returned to their fenced in area to give it a walk around. There are three ponds in this area, but I only saw birds in one of them. There is another duck blind in there that overlooks the fence and into a small pond, also devoid of birds. All in all I enjoyed this place and definitely will return to get some seasonal shots.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meabbott/sets/72157611539355868/
The Chesapeake Environmental Center run by the Wildfowl Trust of North America (map) is another excellent place to visit. They have a variety of different kinds of scenery from beach to wetlands to pine stands and so on. The main attraction here is the birds and there are plenty of them. When you arrive you go to their visitor center to pay the $5 entry fee (they could use better signage since I nearly walked past it). It has a big window on a pond which had geese, swans and ducks when I was there. The visitor center also has some exhibits and they had what I would call a scoreboard where they were keeping track of sightings of various kinds of birds. They also have other attractions nearby in a fenced in area such as an aviary (under repair and no birds were in it) and some “raptor mews” which contains non-releasable birds of prey (usually due to injury). One mew had a pair of owls and the other a pair of Bald Eagles. I didn’t take pictures of them because the fencing prohibited good pictures, but you can see them quite well.
I was given a map of the facilities at the visitor center and I was able to plan my visit with it. I went first to the boardwalk over the wetlands. It has an observation tower (see the structure in the image to the left) roughly a third of the way out onto the wetlands and it provides a nice view. I would find two more observation towers on the park. There wasn’t a lot to observe from this area besides the scenery. Back down on the boardwalk I saw some small ponds in the wetlands area that have little minnow like fish in them. And the end of one leg of the boardwalk you wind up on the beach. There is a beach river there that was seemed to be draining water back into the bay that had come up during high tide. A variety of interesting patterns are present in the sand here.
After this I walked East along Lake Knapp to the Northern end of their Marshy Creek Trail. Along the way I saw a large crane like bird coming in for a landing. It was so large and so close I forgot how to use my camera and didn’t get any pictures of it before it disappeared out of view behind the vegetation. There are two features in this area. There’s a canoe landing which is a boardwalk over the wetland that angles down to the water at the end. This is a good viewing location and I got a few pictures from here. There’s another observation tower here as well. There were no birds in view of the tower here, either, but as with the previous tower it is a very scenic view. From here I went back South along the Marshy Creek Trail to the East Blind that looks over Lake Knapp. There are two duck blinds here, the West Blind (White Blind) was closed for repairs. This is an excellent spot to view the birds on Lake Knapp.From there I walked through the Hummock Loop Trail. There wasn’t much to see in there, but it shows the diversity of scenery on the island. It was pleasant and quiet. Next I walked to the South Meadow loop. I imagine there will be more to see here in the summer, but again, it was pleasant and quiet. I walked back south to the Piney Point path and peeked in the Woodland Pond, no birds. So I kept walking. Now, when I walk through wooded areas, I tend to stop every few feet and look around to see if I can spot something interesting. After one of these stops, I did my looking around and didn’t notice anything and took one step. I cracked a branch and about 25 or 30 feet away from me a small deer went bounding into the woods. It went so fast I didn’t have time to remember I had a camera with me. At the end of this trail there was another observation tower. More of a platform than a tower, but it was high enough to see above the vegetation and get a nice view of the surroundings. On the way back to my van I returned to their fenced in area to give it a walk around. There are three ponds in this area, but I only saw birds in one of them. There is another duck blind in there that overlooks the fence and into a small pond, also devoid of birds. All in all I enjoyed this place and definitely will return to get some seasonal shots.
