In this post I am going to highlight a few of the much wildlife I’ve seen around the park. With it being one of the few water sources in the area, it’s a big attraction to birds and all kinds of other wildlife. One of the most abundant things is the squirrels and rabbits. Here’s a photo of one of the hundreds of ground squirrels, which are actually a nuisance here, where as the rabbits seem to be on a much lesser problem. I didn’t get any photos of the rabbits yet they are too quick. 
I’ve also seen our resident coyote several times, one time within 50 feet of the RV. Maxine and I were sitting outside one evening when she started to growl, I looked up to see the coyote cross the road. Didn’t get any pictures of him either. But one morning I did get a cool picture of one of the many Osprey that are in the area. He was Perched on the wire above the river. 
I have also seen several bald eagles flying around, the only picture I got is this one sitting in a tree off a fair ways away. 
There’s also a variety of different hawks that I see each day. I have seen Red-tailed, Cooper’s Hawk, Kestrel, & Swainson’s Hawk. There’s a rather large flock of turkey vultures that love to feed on the fish they can find and other animals left behind as roadkill or whatever. 
Speaking about fish, I found this nice bass on the water’s edge one day. I pulled it out of the water onto shore and by the next day the birds had a just about all gone. 
On another morning I got this picture of this doe dear. If you look close to the left, you’ll see two fawn with her, bedded down in the tall grass. 
But by far the coolest thing I saw was this Kingsnake eating a Rattlesnake, almost the same size as him. 
It was laying along the edge of the service road, between me and the laundry. Where I was going back and forth doing laundry. At first when I went by didn’t realize what it was. But when I was headed back to the RV I stopped and couldn’t believe it. This photo was taken about a half hour after the first one and he’s just about got the whole thing consumed. 
One of my main tasks here at the park has been picking up trash. This is a job that is most often done by volunteers in the Parks’. It was actually kind of out of control because there have been no volunteers here since March, and the park gets a lot of, day-use traffic on the weekends. On one day I ended up staging a couple big piles in one area down the hill. The Rangers came with a four-wheeler to pick up later. 
In another area along the beach where people frequent quite often right now. I got these two big piles cleanup. 
If you look at the pile in this photo, (you can see the picnic tables way up the hill), that is where I came down to the lake from. 
The sad part of this whole thing is it only is a few people that make it look so bad for everyone. There’s plenty of trash cans for the people to carry it out to. But some people are just too lazy and I question how they were ever raised. We always were taught, (and taught our children), to leave a spot better than the way we found it. As I’m sure most of you have taught the next generation. The worst part of it is, the people leaving this mess. Are teaching the next-generation bad habits I think that they think there are magic elves the come and cleanup behind them. I guess it is kind of true, I’m the magic elves, LOL. Just to give you an idea of how bad it can be, over two weekends time, (in less than a week and a half). In the same area that I had cleaned the trash in the previous pictures from. I got this huge pile of trash, the garbage can full plus all the bags in front of it and again it was only certain people leaving everything behind and it’s sad. 
Well that’s enough complaining about certain people, in general most people are good. That’s it for this time, up next the super highlight of the last couple months. So, stay tuned and until next time, Safe Travels to All, Rick
On The Road with Maxine & Me 