I've been rather busy/lacking a camera lately. I honestly need to bring my camera to more places, in order to get far better photos of everything I've seen lately. This first photo is from Marina Point, the best place to see the sunset in all of Sangamon County, among other natural honors. (Local herpers know what I mean.)
I found a few phone camera photos from my recent trip to Danville. This one is of a particularly lovely creek in Forest Glen Preserve.
This one's the Fairmont Quarry Ponds, an impressive birding area nearby, and the place where I made yet another attempt to find a Shrike. Someday...
This is Middle Fork Nature Preserve in Kickapoo State Park, and ravines like the one shown above dominate this woodland. I can't imagine how beautiful this must be in a few weeks when the spring flowers bloom in all their glory, at a time when I'll be too busy to visit them...
In the meantime, I run about looking at local ponds for ANYTHING I can find. The ducks have mostly been slow this year, as it's been too warm for concentrations of them to build up behind melting ice. However, I managed to find four Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) and two Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) enjoying a local pond the other day, in one of those moments when I should have brought a better camera:
The Muskrats appear to be building some sort of structure on the floating platform. I have no idea why that is, as Muskrats, thanks to their burrowing activities, are generally unwelcomed by pond owners. I have no idea what that floating platform might be for otherwise, however.
As you can tell, I've been busy, and that won't be ending anytime soon. Sometime soon I'll make a full-day trip, but for some reason March has decided to be colder than February this year, and the frogs and flowers I was going to try to find are not up or frostbitten. I'm rather tired of 2017's incredibly unpredictable weather. Climate, change or not already! Still, as the Dutch Iris in my garden reminds me, spring is coming. Hallelujah!
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