We woke up at the Soo Wally World and prepared for our drive to Seney NWR. As we were leaving the parking lot we spotted something we don't see every day.
Horse and buggy at Walmart. He even had his own hitching post and trough. Pretty neat.
On to Seney.
We took a quick look around at the visitor center and then headed out in Annie to explore the seven mile wildlife drive.
We really enjoyed this refuge drive. Not only was plenty of it close to the water the whole time but it was scenic and has some unexpected hills.
This Belted Kingfisher had caught a meal bigger than itself, not to mention its stomach!
Common Loon mama and babes
Pretty Scenery...
This Common Merganser mama had quite a brood with her.
They sure were cute.
Half expected to see a moose in this scene but alas... none were spotted.
Nice wildflowers bordered the road
and hosted numerous butterflies like this Crescent
and this new-to-us butterfly (on the right) the Acadian Hairstreak (Satyrium acadica) who was hanging out with the Crescents.
We also saw this cute little Skipper Butterfly that we have not yet been able to identify.
At a couple of points along the drive we decided to park the van and walk back to look at flowers and insects.
We got a nice shot of the Common Wood Nymph Butterfly
and saw this (which, believe it or not, is a moth) Ctenucha virginica, Virginia Ctenucha Moth.
This Geometrid Moth was hanging around. It's super light colorings have made it hard to pin down and ID.
Out in the open water we spotted this Otter.
In this pond we saw
this Hooded Merganser.
At this pond we spotted
this busy beaver.
And, in our final pond we spotted
two mama Ring-necked Ducks
with their babies.
There were also plenty of sightings of very familiar birds and butterflies, as well. We truly enjoyed our time at Seney and ranked it amongst our favorite wildlife drives.
** A note for those we are not regularly in touch with. We are not even close to Michigan in 'real time'. But we are doing our best to sort through all of our photos and are playing a serious game of catch up when we do get some internet. Given we are about to go web dark yet again for a period though... there really is no telling!
So, stay tuned.....