The Marsh

The bike trail we take most often has an entrance right at the end of our street, so it's very convenient. It's a flat trail that used to be a trolley line. It's very easy to ride and chock-full of wildlife.

So far on this trail, we've seen:

• A pair of turtles sunning


• A Great Blue Heron


• A hawk of some sort (Cooper's maybe? We couldn't tell)


• A whole bunch of deer, some only several yards from the trail


• A fox


• Lots of bunnies


• Several mated pairs of ducks


• Lots and lots of random birds

The fox was really cool to see. We just spotted it last week and it was actually running down the trail in front of us.

Some of the deer have really freaked us out because they were so close to the trail, and we were afraid they might bolt and come straight at us.

Great Blue Heron Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The coolest sighting we made was the Great Blue Heron. Along the trail is a marsh and there's a spot where a culvert lets the water flow right under the trail. We always stop there because that's one of the best places to spot wildlife—it's where we'd seen the turtles before.

A couple weeks ago, Arik's sister had brought her bike over (from Buffalo) and we took her down the trail, stopping at the marsh, and there sat a 3-foot-tall bird, which we could tell was a crane or heron, but didn't identify as a Great Blue Heron until later. It was sitting down at the water's edge, only about fifteen feet from the trail. When we rode up, we startled it. It hopped to a higher branch, then took flight, flew to the other side of the marsh, perched there for a while, then eventually took off. It was really something to see!

Anyway, we took some nice photos of the marsh Sunday on our bike ride, but alas, no notable wildlife that day.