Well, that was a nice coffee time we had, now I guess it’s time to head back home again.  We will keep following the path this way, it makes a loop around and rejoins the path that we followed to come down here to the river.  The path is a bit narrower over this next section and a little uphill, but not so bad.  It’s actually not as bad as going back the way we came in.

There is a few geese over on the other side of the river as we walk along, and look here, there is a couple of geese on this side of the river as well.  They don’t seem to be scared of us at all.

All through this area is that thick mat of pine needles which is so nice for walking on, soft and silent.  That helps for sneaking up on some of the wildlife that we would like to see along our walk today.

Do you hear that whistle?  There it is again, that’s the broad-winged hawk.  Sounds like it must be fairly close.  Oh look, he just flew up into that pine tree, can you see it up there?  They do blend in well with their surroundings.  That looks like a young one, they would be out of the nest by now.

Here we go downhill for just a little bit, hope you don’t mind bending over a little as we go under this fallen white pine.  It would be a bit hard to go around it, the river is on one side and thick bush around the other way. 

Then we make a turn over here and start to climb once more, but at least it’s easy along this part of the path.  This path was cut out years ago, and no one really maintains it anymore.  But that’s okay, it’s really kind of nice this way, it has a more natural look to it.

Going through this part it’s quite shady with all the large pine and spruce trees that line both sides of the path.  Do you hear that tapping sound?  It’s a woodpecker, but one of the smaller ones, let’s see if we can spot it.  We’re getting closer all the time, keep looking in those trees, it has to be here somewhere.  There it is!  And what a treat too.  It’s a male black-backed three-toed woodpecker, one of the less common species of woodpeckers that we have here.  It’s about robin sized and it’s different than  our other woodpeckers in that the males have a yellow spot on their head instead of a red spot.  You can just see the yellow if you look hard, even though he’s up a little high in that tree.

Well, we’re doing good today, we have been able to see quite a few different birds, plus that squirrel at the beginning.  And there is the end of the path in sight now.  I do hope you enjoyed this little walk.  I thoroughly enjoyed having all of you join me on my favorite path today.

I hope you all have a wonderful day, please stay safe and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.