Loosie Goosies.

“Walking On Sunshine” ... I wanted to sing that song out loud. The sunshine and bright blue sky sure felt good after endless days of either rain or gray and gloomy skies.

The topic of “World Turtle Day” was trending on Twitter today. I immediately thought of those painted turtles that soak up the sun on the partially submerged log in the Ecorse Creek at the Park. On sunny mornings, those turtles each climb out of the water, and line up in a neat row. All the walkers glance over at them when they pass by, and the turtles usually stay there until someone goes too near the water’s edge and it scares them, so, one by one, they slip off that log and plop into the water.

Last year I took a picture of one of them through the trees so I wouldn’t spook it:

The turtles are not the only bathing beauties at the Park. The goslings like to gather on the warm cement to have a wee nap ... they are still babies after all, and won’t be flying anywhere until they are about ten weeks old. The parents are never far from them, often preening themselves while their youngsters bask in the sun.

Now, that the goslings are getting bigger, they are expanding their horizons past the twisted tree in the alcove where I’ve taken their pictures the last few times. Now, they can be seen toddling after their parents in the soccer field, or waddling across the perimeter path. Most of the time they are grazing on the grass, so no wonder they are growing in leaps and bounds. The grass was mowed Monday after I left because all the dandelions are gone once again ... for a few days anyway.

All that grass grazing makes a goose thirsty, so the whole family heads over to the cement landing that sits over the storm drain to sip water without having to go into the Creek to do so. The water level is so high from all the recent rain, that the goslings can reach the surface of the water to drink without any effort.

I like to walk in Loop #1 because this is where all the “wildlife” action is. Each day I see at least three different families of geese. The goslings are various sizes, so it is easy to tell the three groups apart. I think the parents stay in this alcove (pictured up top) as it is protected from the pathway and more secluded.

Not every day at the Park is chock full of the wonders of nature. Occasionally, I won’t even see a squirrel, let alone another human being walking on the perimeter path, so there won’t be any “tales from the trail” that day. But, the beautiful morning brought out lots of walkers and many of the Park’s critters. There were several antics which I’ll share in the next few posts, but suffice it to say there was a little fracas at the Park with a red-winged blackbird and a robin again, and someone got the gander riled up by stepping too close to the goslings and was rewarded with a pink tongue flapping and hissing. Oh my!

I can’t close out this post before mentioning that the robins in the eaves trough have fledged, as I suspected they would since they were so large. I think Mama robin said “let’s get this show on the road” and off they went.

I got five miles walked today as I struggle to make up for lost time in this month of May which was not so merry, but very soggy instead.

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