Squirrel | The Beauty Around Us

July 2 Sightseeing Activities – Manlius, NY

We spent 3 days and 2 nights in the East Syracuse, NY area.

We awakened at 5:15 am on Sunday, July 2 (day 2 of our weekend getaway). We were both showered and dressed for the day by 6:45 am. Complimentary breakfast began at 7:00 am. We were among the first to show up for breakfast. I made myself a waffle and topped it with strawberries (so delicious!). Bob had eggs, sausage and a pastry. Cranberry juice and coffee (Bob) and tea (me) completed our breakfast.

After breakfast we set off to do some sightseeing in the area. We were looking forward to seeing new places, as we had not spent time in this area before. Our main sightseeing goals were: Chittenango Falls State Park, Verona Beach Lighthouse and Green Lakes State Park (in that order).

Our first stop was not planned. As we passed through Manlius, I noticed a pretty park located along NY State Route 92. We drove right by the park and onto another road. Bob turned around, when I politely asked him to do so. We both enjoyed the beauty of Swan Pond, both the upper and lower ponds.

We walked around Swan Pond in a counter clockwise direction. It wasn’t long until we realized there was an upper and lower Swan Pond.

Viewing (or Fishing?) Platform on Lower Swan Pond

Looking Across Lower Swan Pond from the Viewing Platform

We walked around Lower Swan Pond. We enjoyed the wildlife that we saw during our walk.

We saw a squirrel, with a strange-looking tail.
The squirrel was gathering nuts and hiding them.

The highlight of our walk around the pond, though, was spotting the bird in my next photograph. A woman, who told us she works at the nearby TOPS Market and comes to the park daily, led us to this bird.

I would like to extend a big THANK YOU to the anonymous TOPS Market worker who pointed out the Belted Kingfisher to us!

We returned to Upper Swan Pond and our car to continue our sightseeing drive.

This is a parting shot of Upper Swan Pond.

This was a stop not planned. We spent 45 minutes here, admiring Swan Pond and its inhabitants. It was time well spent!

My original thoughts, when preparing the outline for blog posts related to our East Syracuse NY weekend getaway, was to include all of our sightseeing stops on day 2 in one blog post. I changed my mind. This post will be the first of four blog posts about our second day in the East Syracuse NY area.

Back Yard Squirrel

We have four bird feeders in our back yard. Each evening Bob takes the bird feeders down and hangs them inside our garage. Each morning I carry the bird feeders out of the garage and hang them in our back yard. We hope to keep bear traffic out of our yard by following this routine.

This morning, as I was hanging the bird feeders in our back yard, I noticed a squirrel sitting on the peak of our shed. We have two feeding stations in our back yard. The bird feeding station furthest from the house is located past the shed. As I walked past the shed, carrying one bird feeder, I kept an eye on the squirrel. It didn’t move. The squirrel didn’t even pay me any mind, until I left the bird feeding station to return to the garage. I noticed, then, that the squirrel looked at me.

The second bird feeding station is near our house, about 40 feet from our shed. I made two trips from the garage to the bird feeding station. The squirrel didn’t move from its perch on the shed.

I went into the house, changed lenses on my camera and went back outside. The squirrel was still in the same place. I turned on my camera and discovered that there was no memory card. I turned off my camera. I went back inside the house, ejected the memory card from the computer and inserted it into the camera. I went back outside. The squirrel hadn’t moved. I turned on my camera and changed a few of the settings. I took a picture of the squirrel from where I was standing.

I was about 50 feet away from the squirrel, when I took this picture.