An Exciting Outing

I went to Harrisburg to spend the week end with my daughter and son-in-law.

I had told Holly (my daughter) I wanted to go somewhere I could walk and take some pictures. She said she knew a place where she used to walk when she lived in her old apartment. I was so surprised when I got there at just how many different things I would see. Thank you Holly!

Although the Benjamin Olewine III Nature Center is a relative newcomer to the Dauphin County landscape, the park surrounding Wildwood Lake has been operating for more than a century, in many shapes and sizes.

Tucked away in the rolling hills of south central Pennsylvania, Wildwood Lake Sanctuary is on the outskirts of Harrisburg, only about 10 minutes from my daughter's house.

There were a lot of different kinds of plant life and some interesting exhibits too.

Don't forget you can double click the picture and read the sign!

The American Lotus flowers are beginning to bloom throughout Wildwood Lake. The giant lily-like leaves are visible on the water from nearly every angle of the lake. It is just like a sea of lotus flowers. It was beautiful, altho the bright sunlight blew out the color in the pictures.

I was impressed with the upkeep of the grounds and bridges we crossed.

A large bed of bee balm was growing up by the nature center.

The Delta Boardwalk meanders through a marsh and wet woodland where a variety of wetland and upland birds may be seen
It was so easy to walk on the 'boardwalk' and be surrounded by the wetlands.

while taking a picture of some ducks I was delighted to see an egret at the far end of the water. See it there?!


Then I got really excited when I spotted what first just looked like a piece of drift wood sticking out of the water, but I had my binocs and sure enough it was a heron.

I am not that familiar with herons, so I looked them up and then I looked on the Wildwood Lake website...Listed here: http://www.wildwoodlake.org/ and found the following post:

This past Sunday morning at Wildwood I saw at least three (maybe four)Black Crown Night Herons, a single Yellow-crowned Night Heron, plus several Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and Green Herons

I have tried to narrow the search and identify this heron, but am not sure. Anyone know for sure? Let me a post.

You can bet when I go back to Harrisburg I will be going back here.
There were lots of trails we did not take and lots of pictures to take!!
Made all the hard work of landscaping (scroll down to the next post for that adventure) very worth while.
THANKS HOLLY!

And that was my week end 'window on nature"
To God be the Glory - Great things he hath done.