Local Photos

Here’s a few fun recent photos from my local area.  Birds and sunsets.
Loved the circles!

Great view!

Three

Here’s lookin at you kid.

Smallwood Village Lake, Waldorf MD

I had to visit Waldorf for several doctor's appointments, so I took a pleasant break at Smallwood Village Lake/Post Office Lake during my lunch time.  The easy flat walk around the small lake is less than a mile and includes some different sights during various season of the year.  It's a little oasis in the middle of a bustling city.  I saw several different birds, floating vegetation islands, a small bridge and a little children's playground.  During other visits, there were fishermen as well.  The parking is a little difficult, since it is on a divided highway, and only easily accessible from one direction.

                          

The whole lake
                  

The bridge is just out of the photo on the far right.

Great Blue Heron

Possibly black ducks

Red winged blackbird

The floating islands in the lake had a few flowers.  I didn't notice that they were moving around at first, but when I started photographing them, I noticed they had shifted to new places.  They seem to be made of some type of floating plastic sections hitched together, so they move around easily.  

Some people refer to the lake as Post Office lake, so it confused me a little.

 

Great Blue Herons

Storytime: The Lost Gosling

 

On May 2^nd, I noticed that the geese on the osprey's nest hatched their goslings. Daddy Goose was on the lawn, keeping an eye on a little gosling that had somehow fallen out of the nest.  The little bird stumbled around and got caught briefly under the base of the cedar tree by the water.  

Daddy Goose couldn’t find it hidden under the trunk, so he wandered off toward the osprey nest where Mama was still sitting on the other goslings. 

 

The baby wandered around, stumbling a lot.  It swam toward the nest, but Daddy Goose was looking the other way.  

I purposely left the bulkhead in my shot, so you can tell the little gosling was trying to swim back and forth and came back to the yard.  Mom and Dad were still looking around.  

The gosling tried walking along the bulkhead.  

This took quite some time and after a long while, some other birds tried to help.  This surprised me, because I wasn’t sure if the other birds would attack, but they actually seemed to try to let the geese know that they had found the little one.  

They landed quite near the gosling.  The photos are not very good, but you can see that the Great Blue Heron and the black birds were not attacking.  

Daddy Goose got quite close by, but still didn’t see the baby just sitting near the bulkhead.  He just kept looking the wrong way.  

And Mama goose was still sitting on the other young ones.  

Finally Daddy Goose spotted the gosling in the water by the pier where I couldn’t see them, and they swam away from my view.  I don’t know if they stayed on the shore or what happened overnight.

On May 3rd, I saw three adult geese and a family with 6 goslings by the bulkhead.  I don’t know if the little gosling survived or if the family was the same one.  It seemed likely and I can only hope the little gosling survived.  

After swimming around for a bit, the geese abandoned the nest and later I saw a goose pair checking out the osprey nest.  I kind of doubted it was the same pair since there were no little ones.

The End

Point Lookout Visit

Dog Beach

We visited Point Lookout State Park on a gorgeous sunny day when the sky matched the water, due to a light haze, creating a fantasy look.  The tankers in the bay appeared to be floating in the sky.   We visited several locations, the fishing pier, the Point, the causeway, and the dog beach.  The dog beach was deserted when I arrived and a Great blue heron had taken up residence.

Great Blue Heron

Goldenrod

Floating Tanker by Fishing Pier

Causeway