Here We Come....Walking Down the Street....

A song [blog title] by the flock of geese Monkees came to my mind as soon as I turned the curve along the road at the Park and saw this sight....

....then getting out of the car near the walkway, I saw The Three Musketeers...or maybe they were the Stooges, I didn't stop to ask them. As soon as they lower their heads, I'm outta there!




After walking my total steps, at this particular park, I stop under the shade of the oak trees to cool off.  The temps are hoveriing the low 90s.  And the index in the 100-105 degree range.   I pulled out my lensball from my pocket and aimed at the tree-lined pond:

A few days back, prior to the park above, I walked the pathway at Pollywog Ponds. I haven't been there since last winter. I tend to keep my distance from here during the Spring months, because it's so woody and grassy that most times I've been there in early Spring, I come out with a tick or two. BUT....since the last time I was there, boy the landscape has changed so much. By that I mean in the winter, the trees were barren. This week, everything was so verdant and leafed out. The reason I like it around the ponds, it's ALL natural. There is NO civilized ruin here. No cement, no traffic noise, grassy trails, ponds, the river. Just me and nature!! [sometimes those dang snakes are nature spoilers tho!]. Of course I'm there for the birds mostly. This time around when nearing the river banks, behind me, I heard what I thought was a woodpecker. Now, over the decades I've been birding, I have seen the cuckoo bird, they are quite a silent, secretive bird. But up until the other day I had not heard their call. I did this time. It was what I thought was the woodpecker!!!  I didn't get a photo of it.  By the time I focused the camera on the bird, it flew off.  But you can see one photo I got several years ago....here.

according to All About Birds, 

their call is: Calls Male Yellow-Billed Cuckoos make a distinctive series of hollow, wooden-sounding ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-kow-kow-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp syllables. The whole series is quite slow and gets slower toward the end; calls can last up to about 8 seconds. Both members of nesting pairs give a metallic, rattling call, and a series of kow-kow-kow notes that sounds like a metal door knocker hitting a strike plate.

That is exactly what I heard. For the very first time.


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I also took some lensball images of the bigger pond once I arrived.  Will share them in my next post if you're not tired of seeing them...

For now, more of what I saw along the path...

All the while I was walking the grassy lanes, six vultures hovered overhead. They followed me in direction the entire morning. Finally, as I walked out of the area back to my car, one flew in front of the moon!!

I musta smelled like carrion. As soon as I got home, I hopped in the shower. I'm not sure what to think of them following me all the while.