Waggoner's Gap — 2016 — The 21st Century Matriarch

More than half my ‘little celebrations’ this month were place/activity specify. There were 3 celebrations of familiar places/activities:

I spent 4 mornings at Belmont for BioBlitz with fifth graders. The weather was near perfect – much better than the wet weather for the event last spring. Every day held a few surprises and I was pleased that my husband joined me this fall rather than my volunteering on my own.
My walk around Brookside was a fall morning – a little cool – that was near perfect for walking around the garden loop. I’ll have to go back to see the mum exhibit in the conservatories.
Mt. Pleasant Farm is probably one of my favorite places in the fall. What’s not to like about hiking with elementary school field trips! This fall the 1^st grades were the most frequent visitors. I got plenty of practice leading those hikes.

Another 3 of new places/activities:

I’d never been to State College (Penn State) before. We picked a great weekend to go – colorful fall squash, gourds and leaves everywhere.
Waggoner’s Gap was also new. The weather was not great for raptor spotting…so I celebrating finding the place….but want to go back again to actually spot some birds.
Being with high schoolers assessing the Middle Patuxent River at Eden Brook was new too. The place was full of fall leaves and the river had plenty of scenic variety….and the perspective of high schoolers doing field work (sometimes with water flowing over the tops of their boots) added elements to the celebration that went beyond just going to the place on my own.

There were some serendipity sights that I celebrated via photography:

Getting out to the meadow before the dew dried to photograph spider webs and
Bright fungus growing on a tree where lightning had struck (and killed the tree).

And mixed in with those celebrations was one ‘lazy day’ that I celebrated because it was so different from the rest of the month!

On the way home from State College, we stopped at Waggoner’s Gap – a place known for being an excellent place to watch the fall hawk migration will thousands of birds migrating overhead between mid-August and December. We’d heard about it from some birding friends and decided to see what it was like even though the viewing was not optimal with low lying clouds overhead. We decided this would just be a reconnoiter type stop and we’d come back on a day when the weather was better. It was scenic drive through central Pennsylvania countryside west of Harrisburg to the small lot for the site.

There were clear maps of the trails up to the viewing area and ridge at the beginning of the trail and trail junctions.

The trail was over rocks and was marked by bird stencils. Do you see the orange stenciled bird in the pictures? It did make it easier to pay attention to not tripping over rocks to have the markings at your feet rather than at eye level on trees.

At the top – there is a few of the colorful forest below and the valley beyond. Next time we’ll pick a day with fewer clouds, pack everything in a backpack rather than having anything in our hands (the hike is not hard but is over rocks, better to have both hands free) and plan to stay longer. I’d like to refine my skills at identifying raptors in flight!