After paddling in the morning last Friday, I went for a hike up near the park to stretch my legs.  My plan was to only be in the woods for a short hike, but then 3 hours and 200+ pictures later, I wandered out of the woods with some really great shots.

My brother and I spent several hours on Friday paddling Raccoon Creek State park's lake.   The park is in southern Beaver County near the West Virginia state line and in addition to the lake, has lots of good hiking.  Interestingly, it's not actually Raccoon creek that feeds the lake, but Traverse creek, although Raccoon creek flows through other parts of the park and is the largest stream in the area.

It's been raining a lot lately, so the following pictures are from my past few weeks in the woods.  Even though the weather has been wet, one thing I've noticed over the years that animals rarely expect to see people in the woods on bad days which lets me get closer than normal.  Also, the fungi come out during rainy periods, so I got a few good ones recently.

Back at the end of April, a few of us rented a couple of cabins up at Moraine State Park.  The cabins are situated right on the lake, so we spent a lot of time fishing and kayaking and were lucky enough to have beautiful weather when we were there.  While much of the lake can get pretty busy, the northwest side of the lake where we were at is full of small coves and tributaries that can be explored with kayaks.  It really is a scenic area and the turtles that sun themselves on logs were worth the trip alone, but I was also able to get a few good pictures of herons, egrets and even a few wildflowers.

I hiked up near the park on Sunday, spending some time down by the stream and then hiking around the hilltop in the wildflower fields and trails.  If there was a theme to this hike, it was most definitely the "tiny flower" hike, since I photographed several species of wildflowers with blossoms no larger than a dime.  Scarlet Pimpernel, Star Chickweed, and Pennsylvania Smartweed were all out, plus I also took some great photographs of Pennsylvania's state flower, the Mountain Laurel.

I spent over 4 hours in the woods Sunday wandering around both the stream bottoms and the hill tops.  The Forget-Me-Nots are coming on strong, overtaking entire sections of the floodplain, and I noticed a few white violets that are still holding on.  I even found one of my favorite wildflowers, Pointed Blue Eyed Grass, but the highlight of the hike was when I found a Black Rat snake attacking a Wood Thrush nest, which will be a separate post since the photos I took warrant their own post (below).

While out hiking yesterday, I ran into a few other hikers who told me they had just witnessed an incredible sight.  At first I was a little confused, but then they explained that just down the path a little bit, a snake was eating baby birds while the parents were going crazy trying to stop it.  So I started down the trail expecting to see a baby bird or two that had fallen from the nest being eaten on the ground by a snake, but when I got there I was shocked to find that the snake was in the tree attacking the nest.

Every couple of months, I head up to Lake Erie in western New York to spend some time hiking the beaches and wandering around the forests in the area.  If you have never been to western NY, the lake plain is dominated by vineyards and during the harvest season the smell of Concord grapes is quite pleasant.  But the area also has several nice streams and two of my favorites to hunt waterfalls, wildlife, and whatever else I can find, Canadaway and Chautauqua creeks, are close by.  

I hiked the stream bottoms last Sunday and spent three hours wondering around some of the smaller hollows and tributaries to Little Sewickley Creek.  Trillium is disappearing fast, but some white and blue Violets are still holding on.  ​ And I'm seeing more and more of one of my least favorite plants, so watch out for the Stinging Nettle or you'll be scratching for hours...

When I hiked last weekend, the woods were full of early spring flowers.  Trillium, Wild Geraniums, Violets, and many others were all in full bloom.  Violets in particular are some of my favorite spring flowers, not only for their beauty, but also their variety.  Blue, yellow, and even white violets carpet the forest floor and truly signal that spring is here. 

A collection of pictures I took earlier this spring before I set up the photo blog.