Feelin’ hot, hot, hot at Heritage Park.

Once again Mother Nature has not coordinated her weather with the calendar – it’s only May 27th and it feels like a mid-Summer day!

Not only was it hot, but it was muggy and buggy as well.

When I left the house it was sunny and bright and already 72 degrees with high humidity and a dew point of 62 which the weatherman classified as “sticky” – I’ll attest to that.

I’ve been hankering to get to Heritage Park the entire month of May. I was hoping to see the mallards with their ducklings at Coan Lake since the ducks are always so plentiful there. I could count the amount of ducks I saw on one hand today, but there were geese and goslings galore.

By the time I parked and got inside Heritage Park, the skies were dark. I figured the overcast misty morning would not bode well for picture-taking, but, the reflections were pale, but pleasing, as I walked around the perimeter of the lake, from the covered bridge, as well as the historical buildings like the little red school house and the old mill and its water wheel.

There were signs on many of the lamp posts promoting the City of Taylor’s fifty-year anniversary this year. I walked the perimeter of Coan Lake twice, then walked in and around the village area a few times. The mist and overcast sky made the usually vibrant Heritage Park look a little blah, but the red caboose and old red barn added some much-needed color to the historical area.

A Canada goose made a splash into Coan Lake.

Some geese with their goslings were waddling around. For some reason, I piqued the goslings’ interest, as they seemed to study me up close and personal; usually the goslings at Council Point Park are constantly feeding and rarely look my way.

I decided to check out the inside portion of the covered bridge. Some ducks were sleeping on the covered bridge’s wooden plank floor. That’s not the usual place I’d go looking for ducks, but they looked comfy there.

But, the highlight of my morning at Heritage Park was the barn swallows. They were everywhere, darting in and out of the covered bridge, swooping and diving close to the water. They kept flitting around the pier where they would perch on the top rail. I tried unsuccessfully many times to get their photograph, but they were way too swift for me, that is until I walked under the covered bridge and then I understood why the swallows were dive-bombing around the bridge. There were nests in the rafters of the covered bridge roof. Since the barn swallows perched near the nests, I was able to get a few good shots of them there.

My favorite photo was as I turned to leave and, though I spent a good half-hour trying to take photos of the swallows in mid-air, one plopped down on the pathway right in front of me. I was surprised how plump this barn swallow was as they look so sleek in the sky with their cobalt blue feathers and sharp scissor-like tails.

I finally tore myself away from the village so that I could hit the perimeter path that goes around most of Heritage Park. The fog and mist were starting to burn off by then and the sun was out full strength. Whew!! I did one time around the entire park then headed to the car.

I sank into the car seat and flipped on the A/C. After checking the pedometer, I found I had almost five miles under my belt, and I also had about ten mosquito bites from walking near the trees and marsh-like area of this park’s walking and biking path.

We didn’t break that previous record of 91 degrees since we only got to 88 steamy degrees, but tomorrow’s climb to 95 is destined to break the prior record ... we shall see.

You can catch up on my blog posts before I started blogging at Patch in August 2013 by going here: http://lindaschaubblog.net/