Walking/Hiking Trails – Page 3

The Nature Institute

Godfrey, Illinois

I’ve wanted to come here since I heard about it last year, just as it was about the close for the winter.

A privately owned nature preserve in southwest Illinois, it has multiple trails of varying lengths, winding through woods and streams and along the beautiful Beaver Falls.

It’s just a little cool as we start out, but I’m pretty quickly glad I decided to leave the jacket behind anyway. It warms up quickly, wandering up and down the rolling hills.

The treetops and underbrush glow with spring color, and I can never resist just one more closeup of the cheerfully swaying Sweet Williams.

The stream splashes along a series of stairstep ridges, climbing to the hollow of Beaver Falls.

A sunning turtle and a tired hawk were the only wildlife I could capture, although the woods were full of darting and calling birds. My Merlin app, set to identify birds by sound, captured at least 15 different species. We probably actually saw a little more than half of them.

A definite incentive to come back and try again.

Morning Battle

Angry mama or terrified baby? I’m really not sure. It perched with swiveling head on a nearby branch, far lower than I’ve seen the adults before. The little face seemed downy still, and the tail feathers barely span the branch. Yet, it still seemed much larger than I would have expected from the nestling picture just a few days ago.

At least six crows were screetching and swirling around. One even seemed to dive directly at it, before veering off again. It swooped, in sudden quick flight, back to the nesting tree.

It clung to trunk a few minutes, as the crows melted away, then silently slid back into the hollow tree.

Shaw Nature Reserve

Spring Hiking Club: Routes 1 and 2

I got behind a bit, on the start of the new hiking club season. With plans to do route 1 this week, I was a little startled when the map for route 2 showed up in my inbox as well.

Fortunately, they both started at the Bascom House and were easy enough to combine into one expanded hike.

On a sunshine breezes Easter Monday, the park is scattered with families and photographers, all of us enjoying the explosive outburst of spring.

The Sentry

High in the treetops,

Nearly invisible,

Until she ruffles her feathers or turns her head,

She perches,

Morning and evening,

Surveying the grounds for threats to her not quite hidden nest.

Gentry Spring

High in the tree tops they hover,

A family pair,

Ears twitching, heads swiveling,

Then they swoop in a instant,

To a better vantage point.

The babies are huddled still,

Deep in the cracks of a crumbling old tree

Edging toward the day,

They creep out on the limbs,

To explore.

Wildflowers wriggle,

Through thickets of leaves,

Winter refuse,

Conquered by spring

The Star Magnolia,

It’s frostbitten buds,

Wilted by a late season freeze,

Rallies into defiant bloom.

Bottom to top

Spring floods the grounds

Brilliant blossoms,

Teasing into life

The still stark branches of the taller trees.

Mammoth Cave National Park

Beneath the Kentucky hills, Mammoth Cave stretches out into the longest known cave system, a network of enormous echoing caverns.

Unconnected, at least as far as is currently known, Onyx cave splashes and drips in living formations, sparkling in the glow of lantern light tours.

On the surface, Heritage Trail skirts the ridge above Mammoth Cave

and overlooks the tumbling hills.

Then winds down the ridge

to intersect miles of trails criss-crossing the valley

Edging the rivers

and springs

Deep in the woods, Beech trees cling to their winter leaves,

while spring is blooming at the top of the hill.

Audubon State Park

Henderson, Kentucky

A quick side trip on an elsewhere journey, Audubon State Park is a peaceful surprise, off a roaring highway, in the middle of the city.

We wandered through the beautiful stone museum and I tried to capture some good photographs of the birds that flocked to multiple feeders outside the observation room.

They weren’t having any of it.

Out on the trails, they called from the bare towering trees

While tiny bursts of spring,

hid amongst the crumpled leaves of autumn.

Turtles perched in formation along a log in the wetlands pond, alert to an incoming storm.

Emmenegger Nature Park

Bluff Creek Trail

It’s sunny and busy; a back into the swing of things, holiday’s over, traffic day.

The paved trail branches off into dirt paths leading through the trees and up to the top of the bluffs overlooking the highway.

Old curled leaves still cling to a few scattered trees, while the Dogwood’s new buds huddle tight in their quest for spring.

As the trail winds to the opposite ridge, the thickening trees slowly mute the highway roar.

A pair of downy woodpeckers clatter at the treestops and chase each other through the woods. Bluebirds perch on low branches, taunting me to catch a picture.

The trail loops back to skirt the river, as it slowly splashes beneath the commuter chaos above.

West Tyson County Park

Flint Quarry Trail

Puffy clouded,

Spring-like warm,

January morning surprise

Snow melt dampened,

Slippery boulders,

Glide into gravelly ridge

Woodpeckers and Tufted Titmice,

Tease in and out of the treetops,

Briefly drifting to rest on the trail

Skeletal trees,

March through the valley,

And scale the distant hills

While the trail winds slowly,

Down the ridge,

Skirting through mossy green boulders

Hawn State Park

Connector 3/Whispering Pines North Loop

Clouds are low and thick the day before Thanksgiving. It’s jacket cool, but only just. I’m often tempted to pull it off, but a fresh breeze about the time I’m ready to, always changes my mind.

The trail is a gradual climb up the ridge,

then marches through towering pines

to a rocky overlook,

then winds back down to the valley again.

A tiny waterfall along the stream is even hidden deep enough in the shadows to still be frozen, days after a cold snap has ended.

A final climb to the bluffs, overlooks the river and campgrounds before heading back down the ridge again.