The Other Don Kelly

My duets got canceled yesterday, and Anne’s meeting got postponed, so we decided to drive up to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary for a hike. We got up there about 11:00, bought memberships so we can go hiking there more often — three visits and the membership pays for itself — and then we did a nice two-hour walk from overlook to overlook. Most of the hiking was pretty easy, but there was one path (the Escarpment Trail) which involved a bit of scrambling so we did get in our adventure exercise. Some photos:

It was a beautiful, brisk winter day. There were a few others out too, including a volunteer hawk counter at one overlook. He clued us in on what we could see there, but even though we did see one eagle and a northern harrier — they were specks to me, even with binoculars — he told us the raptor migration is pretty much over for the season. (He also explained to us why there was a fake owl in a nearby tree: smaller hawks would attack it in the daytime while they had it at a relative disadvantage, thus coming closer to the overlook for easier observation.) We said our goodbyes, and hiked off to check out some of the other trails and overlooks he told us about.

After our hike we got lunch at a little general store outside New Tripoli, a place one of the rangers had told us about. A very pleasant day!

(Today we’re both fighting colds…)

Say hello to my little friend:

I saw this beauty on our porch last night and took some pictures. It might not be obvious from my photos but this guy was over an inch long, slightly larger than a cicada, and in person it looked like a cross between a scarab and a nightmare. The iNaturalist app informs me that it’s a “Reddish-Brown Stag Beetle” (Lucanus capreolus), probably an adult male. They are native to the area, attracted to lights at night and not that uncommon, but this is the first one I’ve ever seen.

I was at Shawnee last week, and got to spend time with a fox:

It was pretty close to me, and seemed a little too accustomed to people. Rabies? Semi-tame? Stealing food and raiding garbage cans? I don’t know, but apparently it had been in the area for a while and was thriving, which kind of tells me it’s not rabid, or poisoning itself with “people food.” So, good!

I also got some video of it catching dinner:

A few evenings later I saw a family of deer cutting across the back lawn, probably spooked by outdoor events and trying to find a human-free path out of the area:

I also saw a bald eagle last week, at the Nesquehoning Trestle outside Jim Thorpe, but none of my pictures were any good. Still, quite a week!