An owl!!! ~~ sigh ~~ Very cool, limewave!

One of my main reasons (or excuses) for biking is seeing things; I'm really slow on a bike, and it must be because I'm always scanning the skies, woods, streams, swamps and meadows looking for wildlife, right? (That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it!)

I see deer often; on Saturday, I was getting to my turnaround point and passed a doe; a couple of minutes later, I passed her on my return trip, but this time, she was nursing her twins. No camera with me, darn it!

The week before, I'd seen a buck in velvet in the same area. That little area, tucked in behind a neighbor and close to a major road, is also good for hearing/seeing wood thrushes and various woodpeckers, and I've even heard a veery way off in the distance there.

Some of my recent rides have been after work in downtown DC; I've been seeing a Great Blue Heron and a Yellow-crowned Night Heron in the pond at Constitution Gardens, near the Vietnam War Memorial.

Most of my rides are on trails in flood plains. A few years ago, I was riding along the Anacostia River in Maryland and noticed that the trail had many small flattened (dried-out) frogs on it. Ick!

A couple/three weeks ago when I was riding that trail, I came across a small snapping turtle; he was covered in mud and looked like a leaf on the trail. I'm glad I didn't run over him! I moved him off the trail into the grass. I see Red-eared Sliders a lot; snapping turtles, not so often. And sometimes I see these skinks, which are very cute and exceedingly fast, so glimpses of them are fleeting!