Buckley Wildlife Sanctuary

Goslings learning to forage (someday I'll learn to hold the camera level)

Sunday Erin and I headed to the Buckley Wildlife Sanctuary. We ended up driving there from Lexington since we had a few errands to run down there. It was a great drive, there were some very nice horse farms on the way. Erin was driving, but unfortunately my camera was packed away in the trunk so no pictures of rolling hills and fancy barns.

Once we arrived, we were greeted by the naturalist who runs the sanctuary. He gave us a quick rundown of the place, telling us about the trails, pavilion and bird blind. He also mentioned that he runs it by himself which I thought was very impressive. Of course, he also had to collect our entrance fees, which I think at $4 a head was not a bad deal at all.

We started off by heading to the pavilion, since he had mentioned there were goslings in that area. They were older but still fluffy and very cute. After that, we checked out the bird blind. It's a very nice blind, with a window unit air conditioner, one way glass windows and a port to put a camera through for easy pictures. There was a large array of bird feeders outside the window to attract wildlife.

American Goldfinch - from the blind

Chipmunk - from the blind

House Finch - from the blind

We didn't spend long in the blind, since we had arrived late and didn't have much time until the sanctuary closed. So we left the blind, and set off for the red trail, which was the longest at about 1.5 miles. The trail was fairly well maintained, though the grass was a little high in places so I'm definitely glad I was wearing long pants. I think I need to find something better for hiking than jeans though, because at 80 degrees and very humid it gets to be a little too hot at times. While we were hiking we saw a variety of wildlife, including a deer, an indigo bunting, a great crested flycatcher and this lizard. The only one of those I got even an acceptable picture of was the lizard.

Lizard trying to escape the camera

There was a half mile offshoot of the red trail (the yellow trail) that we took as well. We finished up our hike right at closing, perfect timing on our part.

On the way back home Erin saw a vulture perched on a fence post. She stopped and I got out of the car to take some pictures. I was a bit overeager, and spooked it. So I managed to get a picture of it in flight instead of perched, an opportunity I'd take any day.

Black vulture, running from the camera

A funny thing about the pictures I took of the black vulture flying away: I shot them in a burst, and in every single one the wings were in this position. I guess the wing beat of the black vulture (or at least this particular one) is right around 4.5/sec, which is the burst speed of my camera. Hopefully I can capture another one flying sometime to test my theory.

Finally we drove past some chickens in someone's yard, and I couldn't resist taking a couple pictures.

Rooster

Hen

I would definitely like to go back to Buckley one day and spend a couple of hours in the early morning taking pictures from the blind. There were also other offshoots from the red trail that could be explored, as well as the other two marked trails to explore. It was also very quiet there, especially considering how close it is to Frankfort and I-64. We could not hear any cars while we were there. So overall I think this place rates pretty highly among the local parks, both for convenience and beauty.