In which a creek steals my camera

Marsh Creek in fall.I went swimming in Marsh Creek last week. It wasn’t a planned exercise, but it was instructive. Global warming, it seems, has reached Adams County – a fact I had only suspected until, an hour after the impromptu dive, I’d not frozen to death.

We had gone canoeing on the creek, me with a camera – which attained a starring role in the story to follow.

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Storm troopers on gossamer wings

They are reportedly as aggressive as they appear.Something caught my eye, something that didn’t quite belong among the long green needles. I don’t know why I looked up for it, except that I habitually wander around with my eyes pretty wide open, the better to see stumps and other things I might run into while walking through the woods or paddling close along the shore.

Then I found it, a volleyball-size wasp nest hanging from a Pitch Pine, about 10-12 feet up from the ground. And about six feet from the trail, where joggers, bicyclists and other woods wanderers regularly pass by, probably without noticing the armory above their heads.

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What bird is this?

Walks along the lake shore, doesn't get his feet wet.Sometimes when you’re wandering or paddling around, you find something even the pros can’t identify. So here’s asking my loyal readers:

“What bird is this. It can be found at the central Pennsylvania canoeing lake about 15 miles from my home, walking along the shore, grabbing food from between rocks and logs, twigs and other such flotsam. I’ve never seen one actually get its feet wet.
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