Visitors 77
Modified 21-Dec-23
Created 10-Feb-19
29 photos
Visiting Searsville Lake and environs with John Todd's photography class, I experience my favorite time of day once again: dawn. We all set up on the dam, in the cold current of air off the lake, to capture the dawn. I led a small contingent up Trail 8 and back around: springtime flowers (dirca), buds (buckeye), and mist-shrouded vistas. Many of us noticed a hawk perched in a tree near the Visitors' Parking Lot.
The morning was mostly overcast, with a few drops of rain. Heavy rain the previous evening left the woodlands wet and the dam overflowing. We did see sun, occasionally.
After they left, my fellow docent Scott Gould and I took another walk around. Another hawk (juvenile red-tail?) had taken possession of the acorn woodpeckers' granary tree overlooking the meadow below Road C, below the Sun Center. The woodpeckers kept their distance as the hawk scanned the meadow and posed.
We walked back across the dam to see some crazy bright-yellow mushrooms I had noticed. Then back to our cars, with cameras. As I was driving out, the sun had reappeared and the acorn woodpeckers were back in their granary tree.
PS: It rained hard that afternoon.
A nearby gallery shows the valley oak near the Visitors' Parking lot from various angles and under different weather conditions. A changeable day.
