Nature Walk @ Pokagon

Sunday morning was a clear and sunny day. Since it had been rather warm - we had removed the rain cover from our tent. Thanks to this, I happened to wake up as soon as it was light outside ... around 6 am! Unfortunately, everyone else was sleeping/ snoring peacefully. One of my cousins is an early riser, so he was awake too.

We decided to walk around the campgrounds and enjoy the woods. As luck would have it - we met the Park Inspector For Pokagon State Park - Fred Wooley while we were strolling. He invited us to join his team on a bird watching walk, and even lent both of us binoculars so that we could enjoy it. Thrilled at this - we gladly joined in.

Fred took a party of 8 of us through the Pokagon woods where we saw some of the most awesome birds. Being located near a lake, makes Pokagon a place where you can see water birds too. We started off with seeing a mourning dove, and some sparrows, and moved on to see the great blue heron - a bird that is famous in the area.

In addition to the binoculars, Fred also had a spotting scope.When focused on the birds, it's high level of magnification allows you to see each individual feature of the bird. The color of the beak, the eyes - everything!

At this time - I was cursing myself for not carrying my camera ... Luckily, Fred had one with him, and focused it on the birds ... Here is a picture of the heron as clicked by Fred.

Walking on we saw many other birds - a bright red cardinal, the indigo bunting - a bright blue feathered tiny bird. Fred would imitate the bird calls, and that would often draw the birds out. We also saw a Yellow Warbler eating his breakfast (with a bug in his beak), a red bellied woodpecker, some turtles, green herons & wood ducks (featured in the photograph) and Canadian geese in the lake. Clicking these pictures required special skill to get the camera lense to focus through the lens of the spotting scope, but then - a picture speaks a thousand words!

Thanks to meeting Fred, this walk was the absolute highlight of my visit!

Weekend @ Pokagon State Park, Indiana

Last weekend - was a special family reunion weekend spent at Pokagon National Park, Indiana. Seven members of my family were meeting up for a weekend camping trip.
One of my cousins had booked the campsite, while me & another cousin planned out the food and camping gear to be carried there.
As always, our trip began at Walmart - the one stop for all the camping gear we needed ... a tent, sleeping bags (one brat cousin asked me to pick his sleeping bag as well!), charcoal for grilling .... By the time I was done with this shopping - it seemed more like living in a tent with all the usual things, rather than surviving with basic necessities!

We drove to Pokagon on Friday afternoon - hitting the peak Chicago traffic en route. After a few stops to pick up a snack and such - we were at the campground by 8 pm. Luckily, it was still daylight - (isn't summer just awesome?) and we soon pitched a tent with my neice and nephew helping out as well.

Getting a fire going was tricky, but we finally managed to get one going and were soon grilling kababs on skewers. Canned tomato basil soup completed the meal.

The next morning was spent hiking (well, walking actually) on a few of the park trails. It was cool in the woods and fun to meander along. We were back to our campsite in time for lunch. (Of course!) Went to the beach in the afternoon - this was one crowded place ... Headed back to the campsite and started the fire again (we were getting better at this by now...) and grilled some chicken over the coals. This tasted awesome! There's something about food cooked over an open fire that is just so tasty! :)

We happened to leave 2 covered boxes containing our provisions for the next day outside by our table, thinking they were safe. Well - we were wrong! Raccoons made a meal of it. We heard them outside at night - and even used a torch to check them out - but none of us was daring enough to walk out and scare them off. We decided it was better to let them have the bread and muffins, than risk our limbs! ;)