I had the good fortune of growing up in a family that loved the outdoors. My paternal grandfather made it to 48 states and went to many, many national and state parks. He loved to take long walks. Yosemite was his favorite place. I happened to be visiting there when he died.
My maternal grandmother was a HUGE animal lover. She often had cats and dogs as pets. She also had a parakeet and snakes as pets as well. She usually had a bird-feeder in the yard and had binoculars and a bird identification book by the window.
My parents and I would go tent camping in the summer and we always had a contest to see how could find and name wildlife first. I went to many zoos, botanical gardens, and wildlife parks.
So when I'm on paddling I love to see how many creatures I can spot. If I don't know what something is -- when I get to a computer, I look it up. I've learned about several new birds that live on Lady Bird Lake.
Today I had a great paddle. Here is the wildlife list:
-- a pair a wood ducks. First I saw them fly across the lake. When I got to the other side, I saw them again, swimming and eating
-- a night heron. He was behind a bush, along the shore. I almost missed him. He was hunting up some breakfast.
-- a Texas Brown Water Snake. I got to watch it swim across the lake. The water was really calm so I could see it go all the way across.
-- a great blue heron. The heron was in water up to it's body (and they have long legs). It was also fishing for some breakfast.
-- swallows and swans. I'll be writing a whole post about them another day.
-- and always lots of turtles and fish!!!
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