2008 April 06

We have a delightful walking trail about 12 miles from our house the trail is in the town of Russellville on the outskirts of the city and is a animal & bird refuge. About 3 years ago an article in the paper said that an alligator had been spotted at the Bona Dea Nature Trail in the swampy area in the back of the park. There was a photo of the gator in the paper. Every since then my daughter and I and tons of other people I’m sure have wanted to spot the gator. Well on Saturday my daughter was home for the weekend and as we often do the two of us ended up taking a walk – she hadn’t been to the trails in sometime as she now lives in Little Rock. We were half way around the longest trail back in the swamp lands and low and behold the alligator was about 70-100 feet (I am guesstamating — is that a word? I am not good on judging distances) off shore sunning himself and maybe anticipating lunch? Those turtles are very close!! We gazed at him for about 10 minutes or longer and my daughter luckily had her camera along and was snapping one photo after another — how I wish I had brought the binnoculars with me!! But we saw him and that is what counts!! Alligators normally are not this far north in Arkansas, it is felt by officials that the gator had been someones pet until he grew and then they “dumped” him at the park where maybe they felt he could fend for himself and make due? he has been out there some time over 4 years now as the corp of engineers who maintain the park knew he was there about a year at least before the general population in the area did.

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Springtime is such a pretty time of year. We have two bird feeders out year round to attract all the beautiful birds. I used to have two bird feeders that were squirrel proof with little cages that drop down to protect the seed from the squirrels — I like squirrels – I just don’t want them to get the bird food! One of my feeders broke at the beginning of winter so I picked up a new one that can convert to a thistle seed feeder for the finches of which we have many. But right now I ran out of thistle seed and just have the sun flower seeds so I turned the little gadgets on the feeder that changes size for the seed to come out. Well of course after I did that the squirrels caught on that bigger seed was coming out and have been bound and determined to figure out how to get to the seed. I had the feeder hanging in one tree and moved it to the swing in the front of the yard thinking maybe they wouldn’t notice it for awhile — wrong! they discovered within days – here are some photo’s of the pesky little critters eating to their hearts content this morning before I got mad and moved the feeder once again, this time with a long wire hanging from a branch thinking maybe they can’t get down the wire to the feeder — we will see what happens.