Larry A. Smail's Blog

Spring Beauty

The weatherman had, originally, forecasted rain on Wednesday, April 17, and the early skies were gray in a cloud cover. The morning began to open up and blue sky became prominent. The temperature climbed rapidly too.

Bullfrog

I walked earlier in and around West Kittanning, Pennsylvania before deciding a further woodland jaunt might be required of me. I loaded up with some buckets and a shovel along with a bird house I made recently and the last remaining deer rib cage. (The crows missed their meat supplement during the afternoon.)

I went to a hunting and hiking haunt of mine. here I disposed of the rib cage in the woods so through time it would, once again, become part of nature. I walked up hill to a field and erected the bird box. I circled the ridge top and flushed a hen turkey. I became concerned of chasing her from a nest. I searched about and didn’t discover any eggs. Hen turkeys may abandon a nest prior to incubation. They do not begin to incubate until the entire cutch has been laid over a period of days. I saw two deer here too.

The old building

I moved deeper south along the Cherry Run Watershed before climbing another long, but gradual climb to the fields on top. I hoped maybe a strutting gobbler may still be out despite the warming day. Another plan of this particular hike was to check for remaining hepatica flowers among a certain slope. This wild flower was blooming at my home. Last spring I removed many of these flowers to transplant prior to a future coal stripping operation. I must have done a complete job since I failed to see any.

Curious deer

I saw five deer on this excursion and later saw two more. Two of these deer spotted me and approached me with their tail hairs flared. This was fine until the breeze suddenly changed towards them…Good bye! One small pond yielded many frogs. I enjoyed watching them for a time. I saw a red-tailed hawk and some vultures and my first of the season spring bird; the Rufous-sided Towhee.

  This morning while going towards my old homestead I saw two separate hens and two very nice gobblers. I was walking along Rupp Run. this is a tributary to Garrett’s Run which,h in turn, flows into the Allegheny River.

Green frog