Spring Break 2

Owen started the day by doing a bit of washing - all the measuring cups.


After Abram got a couple of days work done, he was ready for some fun today in the nice weather (high around 70F and sunny).
We took a drive up to northern Lancaster County to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area where there were supposed to be lots of snow geese stopping over on their way north. (Thanks to Sue for telling us about her family's adventure up there last week!)
They have a very nice (and free) little museum with lots of preserved animals including deer, many water birds, a bobcat, an elk head, and a bear head and rug. They also have a display of pelts you can sort onto hooks to match them with pictures of their animals, bones and antlers, and bird eggs. I really liked a display of antlers arranged by the age of the whitetail deer and their nutritional status - poor, robust, and average. The poorly nourished deer antlers were not only smaller but also less symmetrical.

We took a hike through some of the management area and learned about different things they do to encourage wildlife to live and reproduce there.

We found some of our own deer bones

and skunk cabbage blossoms.

Then we had a picnic in a field. Owen ate a whole tin of smoked oysters.



Here is a view of the reservoir from the top of the hill on our hike. The white stuff on the water is birds - mostly tundra swans and snow geese.

We saw tundra swans from the highway. They are on their way from the warmer east coast regions back to Canada for nesting.

We got to see the snow geese up close after a short walk to the reservoir. All the geese in this picture are snow geese. Most are the white morphs or snows with mostly white feathers and black wingtips (visible on the second goose from the front of the picture). There is a single blue morph here too. They are migrating north to their nesting grounds above the timberline in Canada.