A Chilly Stroll

On Sunday afternoon I dusted off the camera and headed out for a stroll with Treebeard. The sun was shining but the wind had a definite chill to it with high temperatures only in the 30s F. It has been a very cold winter.

A few birds were moving around. We saw this yellow-bellied sapsucker checking out a sweetgum tree. If you look closely, you can see how puffed out this bird was. See the belly feathers? He looked like he had swallowed a tennis ball.

 

A bit farther down the trail, Mother Nature provided us with a collage of leaves accented with a whisper of Spanish moss and a couple of sweetgum balls.

 

A young crossvine was climbing a tree.  The leaves looked a bit winter-weary but it was still nice to see a little green in this gray season.

 

In a field adjacent to the trail, sunshine had the broomstraw glowing.

 

Down in the swamp ice was everywhere.  Like I said, it's been a cold winter.

 

 

 

 

An oak leaf sporting a fuzzy gall...

 

Looks like just a stump, right?  Come spring it will sprout cottonmouths :)  The snakes use stumps like this as winter hideouts.  In March we start seeing sluggish snakes out sunning nearby.

 

This little pond is a borrow pit. It was pretty in the afternoon sun.

 

We enjoyed our walk despite the chill.