Hendrie Valley

Yesterday we went to Hendrie Valley part of the Royal Botanical Gardens property in Burlington.  It's a great place to go for an easy hike.  They have a lovely boardwalk and well maintained trails.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), it has gotten a bit smaller as they have recently closed parts of it for conservation purposes but there is still an hour or two of hiking to be had.   You also used to be able to get into the RBG proper through a back gate instead of paying the admission.  The accountant in me did wonder why the RBG didn't lock the gate and they have finally done so.  Which is too bad because I wouldn't have minded stopping in at the tea room but wasn't about to pay a $13 admission price just to go for tea.  Whenever I walk through this park I come up with lots of great ideas for the RBG.  I probably should send them a note with my thoughts just for fun.

As well as being picturesque - the boardwalk is bordered by marshland and there are nice trails surrounded by trees - The thing you will always see there - birds.  Lots of birds.  Most of which are quite tame since everyone (except for us because we forgot) brings bird seed.  They will eat out of your hand which creeps me out so I leave that for others.  The railings of the boardwalk are a perfect dinner zone.  There were also many chipmunks some of which were being hand-fed by other hikers.  Also creeps me out.  Again, a little pile of seed at the edge of the path works just fine as far as I'm concerned.  But, as I said, we forgot our seed so just walked.

The first thing we saw when we parked were this swan and its mate having a big bath.  I love how they stand on one leg for a really long time.   These swans were completely oblivious to me being only a few feet away.  They are used to being photographed as there are always a number of photographers in this park.  I can't do bird photography justice with my little lens.  My lens feels very inferior to the lenses used by the dedicated bird photographers - those are as long as my arm.