Stroll before the storm

Hello!  I hope you’ve all been having a wonderful week!  Mine has been quite hectic, and I’ve been looking forward to getting out today.  We went for another short stroll, meaning to beat yet another snowstorm that is apparently bearing down us.  As our local temps have been relatively warm during the day, but dropping to below freezing at night, many areas are contending with ice.  So I chose another fairly short trail today, just in case the walking conditions weren’t good.  I needn’t have worried, though.  The trail I chose was the Courthouse Lake loop on the southeast edges of Chaska, which (unbeknownst to me) is actually paved and quite easy going.  There is currently no snow on any portion of the trail, although there are a couple of large patches of ice at the northern side of the lake, which do cover the path.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that winter is a good time to look for nests – while leaves aren’t obscuring the view.  We found a few of them today…

It is a warmish day today, temperature-wise, but there’s a brisk wind keeping things chilly.  Even so, we were happy to find more moving water… which a pair of Mallards seem to have discovered before us.

 

The Courthouse Lake loop, as I mentioned earlier, is not a long trail, only about a mile.  So we took our time and enjoyed breathing in the cool, fresh air, as we listened to and watched the ever-increasing bird activity.  We spotted a couple of Downy Woodpeckers, heard a White-breasted Nuthatch calling too deep in the woods to spot, saw five Bald Eagles circling overhead.   This American Robin was perched along the edge of the trail, and didn’t seem to mind us passing by:

The Robin is sitting in a tangle of Buckthorn, which (for those of you not familiar with it) is actually an invasive plant species in this area.   I know of a number of groups (city volunteers, nature centers, etc.) around the Twin Cities that have ongoing programs organized to work on eradicating Buckthorn.  Mark and I are battling it in our own yard – it’s a tough job, but if it isn’t done the Buckthorn could choke out many of our native plants.

On the flip side, we also found quite a lot of beneficial milkweed, particularly along the western shore of the lake.  Monarch butterflies rely on milkweed for their survival as a species, so we were very happy to find such a lot of it!  This photo shows several milkweed pods.  I don’t know as much as I’d like to about milkweed, so I’m not sure what type this is.  If someone more knowledgeable would be willing to enlighten me, I would certainly be grateful!

The impending snowstorm is predicted to drop 4-7″ in our area later this evening, but the daytime temperatures have been consistently warm, so I don’t anticipate the snow will stay around long… at least, that’s what I’m hoping!  I’m anxious to get out and try wandering along some longer and more remote trails as soon as possible!