Birds, snakes, and the dog and pony show

While Emily and her friend spent the afternoon at the mall, I decided to head over to Asbury Woods to see what was up. As usual, I wasn't disappointed. As soon as I parked the car, I saw this tree swallow. When he saw me, he immediately exited the nest and flew above it in circles.
Eventually, he landed back on top of the nest box.
See all that fuzzy junk? Those are cattails. Later in the summer, they'll be sleek and velvety-brown, but right now they look like they're molting.

Also right near the parking lot, I was lucky enough to see this Piping Plover

And the new baby Canada Geese. These don't stay small for long. They'll be as big as their parents in no time.

As soon as they saw me approaching, they hightailed it into the water.

I walked through the woods to the boardwalk and found these wildflowers. Not sure what they are, but they sure are pretty.

My destination today was the swamp. I was hoping to see a frog or some turtles.

Instead, I saw some snakes! Naturally, with these guys prowling around, the frogs made themselves scarce. I could hear them in the distance but didn't see any.

I headed back to the nature center, with it's eco-friendly roof.

In the garden there, I saw these:

But the most unusual part of the day came when I was leaving the nature center. Across the street at the community park, I saw a bunch of people with Newfoundland dogs.
And they all had the dogs hitched up to carts.

And some of the people had numbers on their backs, as if it were a race or some type of competition.



It was definitely an unusual sight.