Taking the long way

I’d like to think that my sense of direction is quite good.

I wanted to go back to the dam and estuary I visited a few days ago ( I hear there are peregrine falcons at the dam, and even though I work with Lucy all the time, I can’t count her). A morning bird excursion with Katdoc got rained out, so I thought I would roll the dice and see if the afternoon would be drier. I thought of a new way to head down to the estuary…Rt. 222.

I saw that Rt. 222 ends right at the estuary, and I knew where it started, up at Rt. 50. So I thought, “Hey. I’ll go down 222 and maybe it will be shorter.”

*Insert maniacal laughter from Kathi, who sees just where this is going*

Well, as it turns out, 222 goes right where I thought it did, but it took twice as long. And it’s not a short trip to start with, anyway.

Rt. 222 meanders through farmland, up and down hills…I was laughing out loud about it eventually.

I did get the opportunity to see some interesting road names.

“Bethel Hygiene” was a good one…but the one that made me almost run off the road:

“LAYCOCK CUT OFF”. I kid you not.

I didn’t get any life birds today, but it was a nice trip.

American kestrel: 2

American crow: 15

Turkey/black vulture: a lot

Pigeon: 50?

Pied-billed grebe: 6

Ring-billed gull: 20

Eastern bluebird: 4

A rest area near Point Pleasant has some info about Ulysses S. Grant, who was born across the street. And a list of all the presidents born in Ohio. I found my first “wild” pellet…presumably an owl’s. I couldn’t really tell what the animal had been, but it had dark fur. It was a BIG pellet.
And when I turned it over with my shoe, I found a pretty orange spider.
I watched and watched the pigeons on the dam, waiting for a peregrine to come rocketing out of the sky and pick one off.
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