Last week my friend Kris and I took a lovely walk in Crane Creek Regional Park which is one of my favorites. The reason I like it so much is that it has so many old native oak trees that give the park its special character. In the spring a grand show of native wildflowers downright explodes here, but due to my stupid knee and the surgery I wasn't able to see it this year. However, last year I did see the wildflowers and if you are curious about them, you can see them here.
The first oak we saw was a dead oak.
Most dead trees are simply left in this park where they slowly decay and still give lots of shelter and food supply for the wildlife. I think this is one of the reasons I like this park so much, its very natural state.
Here's another decaying tree:
Isn't it gorgeous? Of course, poison oak is already growing up the trunk in the background.
Below you see two dead trunks in front of and next to oaks and other trees that are way more alive.
Getting closer and changing perspective, they looked a little different.
They actually remind me of a mating dance of (rattle)snakes, only a bit bigger and clumsier.
We were getting closer to the halfway point of our walk, a bench in the shade of this tree. From up here we had a splendid view over the oaks in the valley. While we were sitting there, we were able to observe many birds and feisty squirrels. Crane Creek is home to a good number of raptors; this time we saw and heard Red-tailed hawks as well as White-tailed kites.
