Photos from Mill Pond Park (29 November 2017)

Today, after my school programs were done for the day, I was able to slip away for about an hour to Mill Pond Park.  Mill Pond park is located in the center of Mt. Pleasant. 

The park is bounded on the north by Broadway Street, on the South by High Street, to the west by Adams Street, and on the east by the Great Lakes Central railroad.  The park is bisected by the Chippewa River.  Most of the park falls within the river's floodplain and is covered by either wetlands or floodplain forest.  The park measures 90 acres in size.

Here are a few photos from my walk.

Virgin's Bower or Old Man's Beard (Clematis virginiana)

Sunlit Common Cattails (Typha latifolia)

A dozen Mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) were swimming around the small pond near the eastern edge of the park.  No matter how hard I tried to get a good picture, the ducks managed to stay in the shadows along the edge of the pond or to keep directly in line with the sun - both made photography difficult.

I have photographed this small creek dozens of times in the past fifteen years.  Today I really liked the golden colors of the dried grass, the blue sky and its reflection in the creek, and reflections of the logs in the calm water.  I took this photo from a small footbridge that crosses the creek.

This is the vies from the opposite side of the bridge.  In this picture I squatted down to shoot between the boards on the side of the bridge.  Getting at a lower angle allowed me to (somewhat) frame this steel bridge and its reflection between the grass covering the banks.  With no wind, the river itself was very calm and allowed the smallest details to be reflected.

This was my favorite picture of the day.  A pair of Chickadees was flitting around searching for insects in cracks and crevices of tree bark.

A Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) hangs upside down from a branch