It's official, my vacation week started at noon today! HOORAY
Usually, I would go and check on my favorite Osprey family in my free time, but after checking on them last weekend it appears they have moved on. In fact, they've possibly started their migration south for winter. Since I couldn't go see them, I decided to kayak and check on all the wildlife out on the water. What a fantastic idea that turned out to be.
I started my journey on LaChute River at the Bicentennial Park. I wasn't even a half a mile into my trip and I saw this absolutely gorgeous cat near the water. I took a few photo's, but it was in a very shaded area so my shots aren't of the highest quality I would have liked them to be. I really wish the kitty was in a better spot because he/she was absolutely stunning. Probably one of the prettiest cats I've seen in a long while. It's fur was white with various shades of grey and long. It's ice were a stunning ice blue.
After I took a few shots of the beautiful kitty, I continued on my way and had fun with the painted turtles. I don't get it, all I want to do is photograph them and move on and yet they hop into the water as soon as they see or hear me coming. All I want to do is tell them to "hang tight, there is no way I'm gonna get too close or even try to touch you". It really cracks me up at how quick they are to move away from someone who has no interest in even getting too close to them.
On my way down LaChute River towards Lake Champlain I also saw great blue heron, green heron, osprey, and eagles. I stopped and took many photo's on the way, but my main mission was to to get to Lake Champlain and head north towards the ferry dock. When I finally got to Lake Champlain, I worked really hard fighting against the wind and current to get up there, but when I made it to the last and final bend, I just simply couldn't get around it. The wind, current, and white caps made it completely impossible for me to turn that bend. It was so bad I had to put my camera into the dry sack because I thought for sure I would get soaked or possibly even capsize. Eventually I gave up and headed back south.
On my way back to LaChute River I hardly had to paddle. In fact, all I had to do was steer the kayak and to be honest, that wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. On the way, I had a gull drop down into the water exactly in front of my kayak, no more than five feet and pull out a roughly 6 inch sunny in it's beak. Holy cow, totally awesome. And I'm totally kicking my butt because I missed the shot as my camera was still sealed away in my dry sack. I kicked my butt all the way back to LaChute River.
As I got close to LaChute River I could see that there was an area that was a hot spot for Osprey fishing. More than anything I want to get a shot of that and I tried, but the winds and current were so hard to fight through that I finally gave up and went back to LaChute River and hung out in the area with the great blue and green heron. I wound up hanging out there and getting many opportunities to being up close and personal with the heron. I even had an opportunity with a great blue who caught a fish.
I'm at a point where I have a ton of photo's of great blue heron, but, I still can't resist getting up close and personal with them and watching them. They seem like they are a prehistoric species of waterfowl as they look and sound so odd. Here is a shot of one of the great blue heron that was incredibly cooperative of me hanging out so close and watching him.
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