Urban Wildlife

Rock Frog on Footpath, Heinz Wildlife Refuge

15 April 2017

I had a not at all interesting reason to be in Philadelphia on Saturday morning.

The skyline changes every time I look at it.

Cherry trees were in bloom.

After the uninteresting stuff, and before we met up with friends for dinner in the city, Jack and I went down to the Heinz Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, situated next to I-95 and the Philadelphia International Airport.

The last time we were here was before I was diagnosed as hearing impaired. I thought the traffic was loud then.

We walked on the path that follows Darby Creek.

The near shoreline is dotted with swallow houses, some in better shape than others.

Turtles sunned (well, clouded) themselves):

Beavers had cut a stand of trees and built a dam along the shore:

There were a dozen or so swans around the creek.

After about an hour, we realized we were never going to get all the way around the trail's loop.

So we turned around. We'd been hearing red-wing blackbirds all afternoon, and now their calls picked up. Of the dozen shots I took in an attempt to get one or two with their epaulets showing, the only semi-worthy pictures are these:

Dinner was at one of those small, noisy, expensive, BYO places, somewhere in the Northern Liberties, with a hip, pretentious name I've nearly forgotten already.