Tuesday, February 8, 2011

A Walk in the Woods

With the warmer weather, I've finally started a program that I expected to start last fall. (You have to know, by now, that anything that involves "exercise" or "movement" is going to take me a long time to buy into!)

I bought a new camera to take to China. The excuse I gave was that it would get me out doing some walking as I learned how to use the camera.

That didn't happen. Weather was cooperative and it was either rainy or very cold and by the time it warmed up, I conveniently "forgot" about my plans.

But it did last week. It was the first warmish day in a long time and I decided it was a good day to start the program. That was the day when I forgot the SD card for the camera, which won't work without one, and then turned into Inspector Clouseau when I came home to get a replacement.

The plan is that I will walk 3 days a week, when the weather is favorable (realizing that technically there is still another month and a half of winter) and put in a bit of time on the treadmill the other days. Maybe. :)

Today I went for a walk at the UCD Arboretum and got a chance to start bonding with my camera. There are a lot of mom and pop mallards roaming around the place. In another month, they will probably be trailing little guys behind them.

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I walked through the Australia section and over the arched bridge and down the other side to the redwood grove.

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It's nice and cool there, though as redwood trees go (and grow), these guys are only little babies.

I went down to Spafford lake, which we used to call "the duck pond." Lots of fowl around there.

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(do you suppose this is what they call a ducks bed?)

I sat and watched the ducks and cormorants at the edge of Putah Creek, perhaps drying their wings...or maybe just catching a cool breeze.

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I walked up through campus and past several of the Robert Arneson egghead statues.

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By the time I got back to the car, I had been walking for an hour, with a couple of stops (less than 5 minutes each) to check out the photos I'd been taking. By the time I got home, everything ached, but that's to be expected when for so long my longest walk has been to the refrigerator. Aches and pains aside, I enjoyed myself.

It was really a nice day and I hope to do it again later this week.

1 comment:

jon said...

I was admiring your pictures. The bird drying his wings is a Comorant. They can stay under water for two minutes. There is a male mallard just sitting there enjoying the breeze.
In the picture above the male mallard is a female. They are plain and not as colorful.
Just like humans, huh.

My wife got me interested in birdwatching. We have a fabulous feeder on our patio. busy...busy.

The eggheads are pretty nifty.
great photos.