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This Red-tailed Hawk zipped behind me as the sun faced me. I assume it was hunting rodents on the island.

Gooseberry Island was teeming with birds this week in August. I walked down the main road en route to the islands end and spotted a hawk on the ground. It flew along the roadway and landed beyond the bend of the path just beyond my line of sight. It appeared it was eating something. However, each time I inspected its landing spot and there was nothing to indicate it was feeding. I approached slowly but it kept a very close eye on me and kept a large distance between us. I am sure it is a Red-tailed Hawk.

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My friend encouraged me to submit the above photo to National Geographic “Your Shot”. I did and if I am fortunate maybe it will appear in “The Daily Dozen”.

By submitting a photo, National Geographic gives you a web page to display up to 100 photos under “My Shot”. What is My Shot? From National Geographic , “My Shot is your chance to have your own National Geographic Web page where you can display your best photographs.” As a result, I am reviewing my photographs and will place my favorite and best photos at My Shot.

My Best and Favorite Photos are at National Geographics My Shot HERE. I hope you enjoy them.

Thanks for the visit.

Quabbin Reservoir has always been one of those fishing places on the “To Go” list. This year I finally made the trip.

It is a two hour drive from my residence. The gates at Quabbin open at 6am which meant if we wanted to get there when the gates opened, an early rise was necessary to leave by 4am!

Quabbin is a heavily regulated area since it is the drinking reservoir for 25 millions households.  A very large and very deep reservoir .

The main focus was fishing but I did bring my pocket camera with me just in case I got a monster fish.

While fishing we observed a Bald Eagle and some Common Loons. The Loons came quite close at one point. One surfaced near the boat, gave out the famous Loon hoot and drove. It surprised us!

The day was a glorious day and we did catch some fish. No trophies but still a good day.

Here are some photos.

I believe this bird to be a Least Tern.

As I was walking along the beach. I watched some terns fly overhead when suddenly they dived into the water. They usually surfaced with a minnow in their bill.  It was fascinating to watch them.

I would have liked to have obtained a better photo but time was not on my side this day.

The 50-acre Herb Hadfield Conservation Area has a small parking area off Adamsville Road in Westport.

The trails are unmarked and varies from wide to overgrown. Parts of the trail forks to unknown regions.

The first fork in the trail I saw an Eastern Towhee. Once done observing the bird, which trail to take - go right or left?

I took the less traveled part of the trail to a small clearing where there was a stone bench that was about to topple. Not a good place to sit and rest.

I picked one of many intersecting trails and reached Angeline Brook(?). The brook was not flowing since water levels are low with little rain this month.

I turned around and continued down a trail which led to a small clearing in the forest. A couple of butterflies flew about - a Orange Sulphur Butterfly and a Common Wood-nymph Butterfly.

In this clearing was too many intersecting trails that was not marked. Not wishing to get lost, I doubled back to the parking lot.

Just before I reached the parking lot. I cleared a stone wall and spotted wild turkeys. I ducked down and got the camera ready. I slowly peeked over the wall and took a few photos.

The trails could use some improvement and the surprise was the Wild Turkeys.

From the Lafayette Road parking lot. My plan was to take the Yellow Trail to Green to Red and back to Yellow. On the return trip Yellow to the Ridge Trail back to the parking lot. At least, that was the plan.

I took a trail that I thought was the Blue Trail because it had blue markings. Somehow I thought I missed the Green Trail. This (Blue?) trail had to many other intersecting old dirt bike trails and was not properly marked. Then I saw red markings which confused me. I positioned my map with the sun and it did not make sense. As a result, I turned around making my way back.

Upon reaching the Yellow Trail I realised I took the South Trail. I re-examined the map and I noticed the thin dotted line on the map was the South Trail. Hmm, odd how I did not see this before. Well, it was getting late and I trekked back by salvaging the original plan by taking the Ridge Trail . The Ridge Trail is about a half mile long, narrow and crooked.

During my short walk I liked the Ridge Trail best. The South Trail markings could be better and made my walk slightly disappointing. Perhaps getting rid of older red marking and using ‘white’ instead of ‘blue’ to mark the trail would have made navigating the trail better. Although, I should have paid more attention to details on the map and trails.

I found Weetamoe Woods best for hiking then for birding or butterfly watching. Will I make a return visit despite the mishap? Yes!

*No photos of this trail . So here is a photo of a flower instead