While technically not a hike through the woods in the mountains, I do live in a heavily wooded area. Just walking down the street I have access to the river, some woods and, of course the wildlife that inhabits it. So take a walk with me and let's see what we can find!
Our first stop is a tree just few hundred feet from my house. The littlest of critters have been quiet during the winter, because of the bitter cold, but today there were signs of life. It's around 60 F, and heavily overcast. Here, perched in a tree, sat a little grey squirrel with his little find for the evening. A nice, big walnut.
He decided that he didn't really like me hanging around. So, he jumped farther away. I tried to get more action shots, but the only one that turned out was this one. Here he's preparing to jump to the next tree by climbing branches, and flicking his tail at me.
He feels more comfortable now, having gone a suitable distance. Lucky for us, I had planned accordingly and was using my longer lens.
We'll leave our friend here to munch on his nut, and continue on our walk down the street. Down the hill and around the bend is the Clinch River. You may remember this exact location in my frozen river post, where I showcase this very part of the river being completely frozen over. Now placid, the river reflects the bank and makes a surreal mirror image.
Turning left, we go down the next street walking along the river. Adjacent to the river is a tall cliff, pox-marked with holes like swiss cheese. Once I went up there to see if there were any animals hiding in these small holes, but alas. I'm always on the lookout, though. One day I may get pounced by an opossum or worse!
Here we pass an interesting landmark. I assume it's some sort of drain pipe or runoff (we have a lot of those around here sticking out of cliff faces), but it certainly looks neat. It seems to not have been used in some number of years.
Well, it certainly looks like the wildlife is hiding from us on this end of the street, doesn't it? How disappointing! I guess we'll just turn around and go the other direction for a while. Passing the river once more, we come across a wide open yard. Here we find a surprising twist! Robins, at the end of January! They don't appreciate us being so close, so we'll just have to settle for looking at a distance.
Down this way, we seem to have found many little birds! There's one, hanging out on the power lines above us.
Continuing on, we pass the first abandoned house on the street. Now, the rest of the houses look pretty decent here. How strange that there would be a couple of not-so-nice ones, but we -are- in Southwest Virginia.
Oh hey, look! There's another bird like the one on the power line, but he looks so neat sitting on the bush like that, doesn't he?
Now we're passing the second abandoned house on our walk. This is the last one!
We're nearing the end of the street, so let's go home! We pass by all the places we went by before. Though... when we get to the place where we saw the birds, there's a doe! She was set up for the perfect shot! I'm raising my camera, getting her in focus - BAM!
Whaaaat! I guess she doesn't like the paparazzi. Oh well, we have her friends running with her, and we can get some nice shots of them as well!
Across the road, we startle two more deer out of the evergreens! Whoops!
Back up the hill we go, back to my little house on the hill! Thanks for coming with me on my stroll through my neighborhood! Some pretty interesting wildlife, eh? Maybe in the summer, we can visit my crane friend who frequents the river!