Insert “part 2” pun here.

As promised, here’s the rest of the story.

After that special encounter yesterday with the two does and two bucks on the river at the south end, I continued north along the river path looking for the osprey. Well, I never did see the osprey, but as I approached where the river gets wide and still, I could see a blue heron up ahead out on the water warming up in the morning sun.

There wasn’t much to see as I passed the falls, and as I approached the southern island, I stopped to see if I could spot the owls again before I inadvertently spooked them. I was standing right at the edge of the water, to see past the brush that grows there, with the binoculars to my eyes, and I had just spotted what looked like owl feathers near the same spot as last time, when I noticed a ripple in the water right in front of me.

As luck would have it, there was a beaver in the water not 10 feet away from me. It appears to have noticed me at about the same time as I noticed it, and it began to hustle out of sight, but I did manage to squeeze off this one blurry picture first. Then it was gone.

Luckily, I had no time to bemoan that lousy shot, because there was an owl waiting for me up ahead. There was just one this time, and it was facing our way for a change.

I took a lot of pictures that almost all look the same because the owl didn’t move much. I almost fell into the river trying to get low enough so that the leaf in front of its forehead doesn’t completely cover its face, but I managed to stay dry and only hit myself in the head with my camera instead. Fortunately, my camera is a lot harder than my head, which is really saying something, so it’s no worse for the wear.

After I figured that at least one picture must have come out presentable, I continued north and was soon greeted by this happy scene. I am seldom able to get my ducks in a row like that.

As I continued north, I’m pretty sure I saw our swimming young buck on the riverbank up ahead, and he was keeping dry this time, but I didn’t manage to get a presentable picture. If it was him, though, he sure is getting around!

At the far north end, a kingfisher and plenty more mallards are still around, but there were no geese nor killdeer yesterday. Instead, a female cardinal let me have a pretty shot again.

Finally, on my way back south, it appears that the heron had moved to a higher perch over the water.

It looks perfectly beautiful out my window right now, as I type this, but I’ve gotta go to school this morning, and so we’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see who comes out to enjoy the forecast warm spell.