A Friday Ramble

Today started out sunny and quickly clouded over. Not that I was upset about that - I much prefer to take pictures in more diffuse light than in bright sunlight. In any case, here are the shots that worked the best, including a surprise at the very end of the hike.

While in Ballard Park I stopped at my favorite overlook looking west toward Brenton Rd. While there this Blue Jay stopped in the midst of ferrying an acorn to see what I was up to.

And on the way out of the park I looked back and got this shot of the south trail in all it's autumnal glory:

Much farther along, on the "country lane" leg of my circuit, this Fall foliage along Hammersmith Rd. caught my eye:

Up the hill and around the bend on Beacon Hill Rd. is the side gate to the Swiss Village Farm, all decked out in autumnal red ivy:

The hike ends in King Park on the south shore of Newport Harbor. This Crow was strutting around on the outfield of one of the baseball diamonds there, trying to chase seagulls off "his" turf and simultaneously yelling at me. This is the best shot of him strutting around:

Looking west across the harbor towards Fort Adams I saw the Madelaine cruising around. That's a part of Fort Adams in the background:

And the surprise ending... There seems to be a Common Dolphin wandering around lost in the harbor. This poor fella just kept swimming around in circles and not getting anywhere. I tried to get some decent shots of him. but in these two shots this is about as far out of the water as he would come, just enought to get a good breath. This was at low tide, and I'm hoping that at high tide he feels he has enough searoom to get out!

And that's today's ramble!