A Visit to the Shiawassee Wildlife Refuge

After catching the train in Chelsea, I decided to head up to the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge.  It is about halfway between Saginaw and Flint if you head up M-13.  When I left Chelsea, the weather was pretty nice and then when I got just north of Flint, it started to rain pretty hard. 

 It was still raining when I arrived at the Flats.  I tried to get some pictures but the rain was almost going horizontally.  It made photography a little difficult but I think I got a decent shot out of it.  This is an egret.

 As I was taking this picture, I thought I was taking a picture of a crane.  It turns out that it was in fact a cormorant.  I like cormorants since I see them when I take ship pictures.

 The rain didn't last long.  So that gave me an opportunity for better pictures.  This egret was fishing.

 I kind of liked this shot.

 A tern with dinner.

 The skies still looked pretty ominous though.

 I ended up seeing another egret.

 He wasn't too happy with seeing me though.

 And he took off.

 There was a little stand of blue flag irises.  Sadly, they were in a kind of out of the way spot.

 But I managed to get a decent shot of them.

 The sun came out, so I decided to take another trip through the park.  This time I saw a deer where I could get a decent picture.

 He was moving through the field a bit.

 and one more shot.

 As I continued through the park, I saw this deer along the side of the stream.  I think I would have liked this one more with better lighting.

 A little bit further and I saw this deer in a field of clover.

 He looked like he was laughing at me in this picture.

 And then I saw a mother doe feeding her fawns.  I thought it was kind of cool.  Just wish there wasn't so much brush.

 One of the fawns.

 I was trying to get a shot of the mother grooming her fawn.

 Another egret flying shot.  They were flying to a stand of trees.  It was almost as regular as a flight at an airport.

 Another shot of the doe.

 I kind of like this shot.

 This kind of reminded me of O'Hare Airport for egrets.

 A family of cranes.

One more shot of the crane.