Abbondanza!

Meaning I found an abundance of photogenic material today, and since it's Columbus Day I figured I'd say it in Italian. Heh, heh! Especially since I was avoiding the Columbus Day parade, Newport's annual celebration of all things Italian. Not that I have anything against Italians; it's just that I really don't do parades, and will go out of my way to avoid them.

Today was a great day to be down at Ballard Park and Gooseneck Cove. My aim in going down there was to get autumn-themed photos for the current Snap Happy theme on Gather.com. Well, I got 'em, and I had some great visitors to add to the collection as well.

So first off I wandered the trails in Ballard Park to get some nice Autumn-colored leaves, and in this I succeeded.

And then, coming down the Southwest Trail from the Valley Trail, I rounded a slow bend and came face-to-face with this young White-tailed buck cropping the grass on the trail.

We stared at each other for a while, then he cropped a little more, then he did some ear scratching, and I figured it was time to move on. He took the hint and moved off ahead of me, and we both wound up in the quarry, where he slipped into the woods on the other side and left me to my own devices.

Around the edges of the quarry, and especially up near the Vernal Pond, there are lots of Swamp Aster patches growing. Swamp Aster is strictly a Fall flower, so I wanted to get some for the Snap Happy theme. To my great delight, as I approached one patch I noticed this Bumblebee, made sluggish by the suddenly-cold air (we got down near 40º F/4º C last night, and when I was taking these pictures it was still only around 50º F/10º C), hanging on to one of the Aster blooms.

And of course I needed to get a shot of a whole patch of the Swamp Asters.

Out the Hazard Rd. entrance and down the road to Gooseneck Cove and the salt marsh, I came across a bunch of Great Egrets and two juvenile Snowy Egrets poking about in the low tide water and mud flats. I ignored them, seeing how many shots of these guys I already have. But down the road a little and on the other side, I found this beautiful Great Blue Heron fishing out in the water.

And just beyond the Heron was my perfect landscape shot of early Fall foliage on Gooseneck Cove.

On my way back to town I decided to cut through Ballard Park again, and found one more shot of Fall-colored leaves.

Wasn't that a great hike?

© 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger