Maple Bough

I've been too committed to my morning coffee to get out in time for the sunrise. Not that the turkeys didn't try to help. They were already outside the window gobbling like maniacs before it was light.

I still left the house early, though, and got myself over to the Sieur du Monts Spring area. Parts of the woods and meadow there were still flooded from the recent rain, which made walking the boardwalk down the Jesup Path a particularly enjoyable experience. It was just very neat. 

(Now I see, in one of those weird coincidences, that I walked this path exactly one year ago. Gotta love that aspect of keeping a daily photo journal!)

I took a whole mess of photos there, and since today's abstract theme was "happy accident" I decided to edit one that really wasn't what I was trying to get. The extra, which I am also quite happy with, gives a better view of what I had been trying to accomplish.

With plenty of time and a full backpack, I decided to head up Dorr Mountain. The trails on the east side are basically tremendous staircases, and I was depressingly winded by the time I reached a trail junction a little more than halfway up. I had never really intended to hike the whole thing, so I just traversed the trail along the east face and and came back down again to the Great Meadow. I'll have to go back sometime when I can get out for the sunrise to get some photos which might do justice to the views up there.

Upon getting home I was pleased to see a pair of palm warblers in the yard. They're always the first warblers to return, and they just pass through. Now I hope to see the parula come back to stay. Of course, that means the bugs are coming back too, but I suppose that's how these things work.