Nature And All It's Wonders

We finally have a few days of high 70’s with bright sunshine and it falls over our two days off so our plans would take us to the Ocean City Visitor’s Center to find out about fishing trips. This is our 4th visit to the area and Carl really wants to go deep sea fishing for Stripped Bass. Wouldn’t you know, the boats don’t start running until May 15. That’s the day we leave for home. And on top of this bad news, three bands of horses have made themselves pretty scarce over the past week. Instead of seeing more as the weather warms, we are seeing less.

But every evening, the Cardinals come out to feed in the open area near our camper and we see the same two white tailed deer, a mother and skipper ( last year’s youngster ), emerge from the brush to feed on the grasses. Most evenings but not all the chestnut stallion and his 4 chestnut mares graze their way through. And on very rare occasions, there is a lone stallion who is in the area to see if he can steal a mare or two. So far neither the white and brown pinto, Bodacious Bob, or the single chestnut, Corky, have been successful.

Also I have an update on the killdeer mother who sat on her nest through horrific rainstorms and gale force winds. We’ve watched for three weeks as she stood up to the “horse giants” roaming through the countryside. Sometime during Friday night or early Saturday morning, the four little speckled eggs hatched. Sadly, we were on duty and didn’t get a chance to watch them dry off, stretch their tiny little legs and then leave the nest area for the very last time. Another camper managed

to catch a glimpse of 4 tiny balls of fluff running after their mother as she disappeared into the tall grass on the edge of the marsh.

I figured I would complete the saga with a photo of the empty broken shells but Carl said nature had already absorbed the shells back into the environment.