Lake Ontario, Northeastern Shore

The early June weather in northwestern New York State has been cool and rainy. Many of our days have been spent in or around the rig, reading, watching TV, or otherwise relaxing. But we have had some sunny days, of which we took advantage as best we could.

One of our afternoons included a walk along the beach and marina area of the park just up the way from Cedar Point State Park. There are so many parks, I've almost forgotten which this was!

I noticed a large flock of Canadian geese grazing on a narrow lawn area near the boat dock. The picture below, only shows about one-third of them. I was surprised to note that they were almost all goslings, with only a few adult birds supervising. I could tell the young ones were from many different clutches by their variety of size. Some were quite little, and some were almost as big as the adults.

I know that some mammals, lions, wolves and elephants for example, will employ baby-sitters to take care of their young while they are away, but I didn't know geese did that too. This was like an end-of-the-year school trip with only a few chaperoning parents to keep the kids together.

I didn't threaten or rush at them, but as I walked closer the adult birds sent out an alert and the young ones gathered closer together.

OK, everyone get in line.  Wait a minute, that's water, not a bus. 

The few geese that stayed on land were all adults. They may have been visiting this park on their own, and not part of the group. 

And away they went. 

On another afternoon we went for a walk in the woods at Cedar Point State Park.

It was the first (but I'm sure not the last) time we have run into mosquitos this year. We will have to start remembering to apply bug repellant when we walk in the woods in the future.

This reminded me of the woods I played in as a child in Wisconsin.

The path we took led us to an open stretch of beach. Craig noted the air smells different than at an ocean beach. No salt and fewer ions.

On our way back we noticed a lot of this pretty weed:

Three shiny leaves ...