Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge

On Monday hubby and I decided to check out a New to us, wildlife refuge.  

It was fabulous.  Part of the refuge borders on Lake Erie. 

 We went for a 4 mile hike and saw so many cool things. 

 Some I was able to get pictures of and some not so much, LOL.  

We saw a bald eagle but it didn't land where I could get a good picture of it.  

So that was kind of sad.

I did get a photo of one of the eagle's nests though.  

It was HUGE!  

This photo of hubby was at the beginning of the hike.

 Walking along the road we came across a Painter turtle in the road.  

Hubby rescued him and moved him to the grass near the water so he would not become road kill.

There were a lot of wild flowers (some would say weeds) but they sure were beautiful colors!

This sun dappled field of Queen Anne's Lace was so pretty!

We saw this tree with the most beautiful cones on it.  

The mint green color was just striking in contrast to the vibrant green of the tree.  

Come to find out it is a Cypress tree.

As I walked off the trail to investigate the cones I happened to notice this beautiful moth.  

I think it is a White Lined Sphinx Moth.  

Also known as a Hummingbird moth. 

 I had one of these in my garden once but didn't really see the wing pattern. 

 I was excited as I thought it was a  hummingbird, until I got close enough to see that it was a moth!  He let me get pretty close for the photo too.

We saw this blue heron and it had caught a snake and was eating it.  

I didn't dare try to get closer for a better picture as I wanted to watch him.  

Right after I took this he swallowed that snake whole!

There were large areas covered in these water lillies.  

When the flowers are finished there were these weird "pods" left over.  

I know you have seen them as dried flowers.  

They are circular shaped with holes and turn brown.  Now I know where they come from!

You can see them in this picture.  The leaves on these are gigantic too.

Herons were everywhere!

While we were eating our lunch a Great Blue Heron landed on the breaker.

This was our view of Lake Erie from our lunch spot from a beach log.

We walked along the beach and picked up a few cool shells too.

After lunch it was time to head back to our car.  

Hubby spotted this water snake when he looked over a bridge we were walking on.  

There were several places that had swans. 

 They were never close enough to get really good photos though. 

 This is the closest I was able to get and my poor phone camera did the best it could.

There is a great birding area in this refuge, Magee Marsh.  

Next time we will head to the birding area and see what we can see.  

We were pretty happy with all the things we were able to see though.

It was nice to have a day away with hubby to just hang out and relax.

I am so looking forward to being able to do this more in retirement.

Only 9 more months!

(but who's counting?)

~XOP~