"Yesterday....

...love was such an easy..." Oh, hello there. Didn't see you click in at first. But, I certainly see you now. That's quite an ...ahem... outfit you have on.
Don't worry. I'll pretend I didn't see it. It's our secret.

Today its raining here in central "Joisey". But, yesterday was very nice... for the tail end of winter. The temperature climbed to the mid 60's (F) and the sun was out shining brightly. It was truly a prelude to spring. Thus, I decided to take a nice walk out in nature and take some photos along the way.

I decided to visit the park in Plainsboro/Kingston that borders both the Princeton Lake and the Raritan-Delware River Canal. When I go for a walk into nature, I rarely stay on the paths. I prefer to get into the woods and up close to the banks of rivers, lakes and streams. You know, the "road less traveled" sort of thing.

During my walk I encountered lots of turtles sunning themselves on logs in streams. It was good to see them finally emerge from the mud where they stayed all winter.


In the lake were plenty of Canadian Geese, mallards and cormorants. I also photographed a swan. It was strange to see the mate of this swan chasing a goose on the other side of the lake. I don't know what started the fight. Perhaps the goose was spreading nasty rumors around the lake about his mate. lol Regardless, the swan being much larger was able to swim faster. So, every 7 yards or so, the swan would catch up and the goose would fly about 5 yards ahead. This tag game proceeded 1/2 way across the lake, until the goose got up on the banks of an island. There he honked at the swan and the swan just sat in the water....waiting. Fuming... I don't know why the swan didn't go on the dry ground, but eventually the goose flew over the swan's head, landed in the water 7 feet away and the tag parade started again, until the goose finally flew away, honking at the swan. Maybe, it was his swan song.

Near a bridge 7 seagulls soared above calling for one of the fishermen to toss them a too small fish, which sometimes they did.

While walking in the woods I encountered a perched hawk, who took off when I got close. Eight grackles were clucking to each other in the trees and a black & white woodpecker inspected a tree for grubs.

Then, behold, I saw my first butterfly of spring. I never saw this species before. It was mostly brown with a redish tint, had a thick silver edge to the wings. A little further in from the edge were about 30 blue spots on each wing. I got some excellent shots of it.

Yesterday, it was very nice to recharge my spirits with an up close interaction with nature. Spring is truly a glorious time of year ! "..Yes, I believe in yesterday..."