Trails Day, Henne

I couldn't have asked for nicer weather for National Trails Day—or a nicer group of about a dozen or so people who showed up to walk the Babcock Ridge and Henne trails. Since my advance-publicity billed this as a "nature hike"—translation for the group: we'd be trekking slow enough to actually see and hear things and stopping often—no one there minded the pace, and at our journey's end, after juice and cookies—a highlight of any walk I've lead on Avalonia Land Conservancy refuges—we stopped for a long time at the Henne boardwalk to set up the spotting scope and scan both the Osprey nest and the treetop nurseries of the Great Blue Herons. The Fish Hawks put on their usual show, although we found no sign of chicks. The Great Blues, however, already had obvious babies to watch, and the young herons were, as always, noisily endearing.