With gas prices rising to well over three dollars per gallon again, I decided to keep my traveling distance to a minimum this weekend. I went for a ride down Millbrook Road in Middletown. This is an area of the town that I'm not all that familiar with and I thought it would be fun to scout it for potential birding areas. It was extremely windy this weekend which made the conditions for birding less than ideal. My first stop was at a place called Miller's Pond State Park. I don't recall ever having visited there, despite the fact that it's not very far from where I live. I was pleased to see that the shoreline was completely undeveloped. Birds were scarce here on Sunday, but I did manage to see flocks of Golden-crowned Kinglets and Tufted Titmice working their way through the treetops. I think this place may be good for warblers in the spring.
As I was exiting the park, I noticed that there was a group of Cedar trees at the top of the hill. I could hear Blue Jays making a ruckus and decided to climb to the top to investigate. It seems that they were probably harassing an owl hidden within the cedars, although I never actually saw one. What fascinated me more than that was a set of stone stairs leading to nowhere in particular.
Then I found the remnants of what must have been an old home. Complete with some type of fireplace/oven? structure. I'd like to find out more about the history of this abandoned home.
Is anyone familiar with this style of fireplace? How old do you think it is? This sort of stuff is always interesting to me. I can just imagine a farm family from way back when sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner in this old house.
The back roads took me in to the town of Higganum. I saw a veteran standing by a memorial to remind us of what day it was. My efforts really didn't pay off in terms of finding birds. I think sometimes it's a process of elimination though. Next time I'll choose a different area to try and hopefully will have better luck. 
After I had my share of traveling around it was nice just to sit in my backyard and watch the birds at the feeders. I guess that's a simple pleasure that I shouldn't take for granted.
12 comments:
Someone at Wesleyan has their eyes on the birds. Here's a link to a posting today on the Wesleying blog about a hawk sighting on campus.
Thanks for the tip steadyjohn-That's a nice photo of the Red-tail.I've heard they have owls on campus too.
Nice pictures! I like the Nuthatch especially well. Gas here is $1.02 a litre. And our dollar is high. That is well over $4.00 a gallon. I will take your prices!
Very cool old fireplace there. I also have to wonder who lived there and what their lives must have been like. Sweet nuthatch!
ruth-wow! That is high.I would like to say that I feel fortunate to be paying 3.40 per gallon but I'd be lying.
Jayne-I'm going to google to try and find out more but that doesn't always work.
Hi Larry,
Even though it wasn't a great birding day, it sure looked like a nice day to be outside! Nuthatches always make me smile too, they are such little comic acrobats.
Larry,
Sometimes birds are just the icing on the cake. Being outside, exploring, are good things, birds or not.
Vern
ruthiej-If I'm outside doint this stuff-it's always a nice day in my mind.
pa-birder-You are spot on with that comment.That's exactly the way I see it.
Glad to see you got blogger working again! Gas prices have been high but sometimes going places close to home can sometimes be better! Great post and love all the pictures!
monarch-I do like to go close to home often but there are some birds that I can't get to see close too home.
I love the abandoned building. Nothing like that around here.
My back yard is a construction zone right now so I can't feed my backyard birds. I miss them. They probably miss their food too.
I love finding those old abandoned structures, especially when they're still relatively intact like that fireplace. Beautiful and haunting.
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