A Yates Mill Pond first for me: ice on the pond and minor patches of it on the trail

When I stopped at Yates Mill Pond Park yesterday for my daily walk, I had no intention of taking pictures because I’d done plenty of picture-making on other recent visits. But ... when you see something you hadn’t seen before, which happened Friday, it was hard not to pull out the iPhone camera and start snapping away.

The primary thing I hadn’t seen at the park before was ice on the pond, and there’s a bit of it in the lead-off photo. That murky, sheened section close to the shore was the only ice in this photo, which is the much larger section of pond on one side (south) of the main pedestrian bridge. 

I selected this photo to lead things off because of what I considered to be much more compelling compositional elements — silhouettes, reflections and cloud patterns — than the ice.

Ice on water was more prevalent elsewhere in the park, as shown in the series of photos immediately below this point. The first seven images below were taken on the smaller (north) side of the pond near the primary wooden pedestrian bridge. The remaining ice-on-water pictures were streams found on the early portion of the walking trail between the first and second pedestrian bridges.   

There were minor patches of snow (some mixed with ice) on the 2-mile trail itself. This was stuff that wasn’t able to melt from the recent warmer temperatures because of how tree branches sufficiently blocked the sun from the ground. 

But there wasn’t enough of the snow/ice to thwart walkers. I covered the full trail yesterday, and there was always a portion of path free of ice or snow that a pedestrian could land on to avoid the patches. I present a view images of that spotty white cover below. 

I returned to the park Saturday to walk, and many of the patches had disappeared or shrunk. But boy, the trade-off was a very gusty wind, dropping wind-chill temps to 20ish, making Saturday’s stroll the coldest-ever for me there. 

Fortunately, I’d checked the weather beforehand and added a layer of clothing, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. 

Much of the ice on the smaller (north) section of pond and on the streams near the second pedestrian bridge remained Saturday; almost all of it on the larger (south) section was gone. A curiosity Saturday: As I began my walk, there were scores of geese on the larger section of pond and a much smaller number — maybe a half-dozen — on the smaller section. They were all gone by the time I crossed the bridge on the return trip.

To see a larger, sharper version of a photo in this post, simply click on the image. To view a full gallery of images from the Friday shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

With leaves now fallen, Yates Mill Pond woods landscape exposes a stark vista

It wasn't until recently that I learned that there are as many as 60 species of heron in the Wild Kingdom. So while doing my 2-mile walk Friday at Yates Mill Pond Park, I was excited to see that a heron was in photo-range distance for my iPhone while it slowly walked in high steps in the pond near the main pedestrian bridge.

If I had brought my DSLR camera (Canon 6D), I'm certain I would have been able to get a much clearer and sharper picture than the ones I got with my iPhone 13 Pro (see lead-off photo). A little farther away from the heron and the bridge were the set of water fowl shown in the photo below. Notice the small group of ducks in the distance from the fowl in the foreground and, in the extreme top of the image, a solitary duck that appears to be swimming toward the others. 

These two photos were the highlight Friday of my photo shoot, and they came near the end of my walk. I didn’t pull out my phone to start taking any pictures until the last half-mile or so of the trail course while still in the woods west of the pond.

I started taking pictures to document the stark vistas I had been admiring in light of how almost all the leaves on the deciduous trees had fallen or blown away. But also, the fact that there were no longer leaves on branches to admire made scores of fallen (or snapped) tree trunks and branches stand out unlike anything I had experienced there previously. 

The first 10 photos below illustrate (I hope) what I was describing in the paragraph above. Below those are some simple landscape photos, including the farm on an adjoining property, which I’ve photographed and presented here before. There are also shots of the trail and a particularly favorite gnarly tree I always come across while walking this trail. 

I finish with some pond reflection images, including a couple featuring the pedestrian bridge and a modest covered area at the bridge’s midsection. 

Photos taken while walking 2-mile trail at Yates Mill Pond County Park

The lead-off photo is intended to be a kind of teaser for this post, entailing another visit to Yates Mill Pond County Park in Raleigh. 

Don't get me wrong, though; it’s legitimate. Fully. But the real purpose for this post is not so much the pond and the colorful trees surrounding it. But a sort of new angle for doing yet another post on a park that’s become a favorite, partly because of its proximity to home and partly because of a two-mile trail I’ve been using a lot in recent months for my daily walks.

In fact, the bulk of the photos I took there on Sunday were taken on the trail itself. It occurred to me not long into Sunday’s walk that I hadn't stop to illustrate the sundry things I see and come across on my walks there. I’ve taken lots of pictures before while on the shorter, one-mile trail that actually surrounds the pond. But not from the longer one that loosely follows a creek that veers from the pond deep into a wooded area adjacent to the pond.

The two-mile trail has segments that resemble normal trails, such as the first photo below.  

But it also has ghosts! Like the one shown in the lower right corner of the photo immediately below.  OK, OK. I kid. On occasion, I toss into a post a photo in which I accidentally include myself, and I was in a playful mood while composing today’s post, so I’m going to leave it. 

In all seriousness, the photo below also depicts one of about seven or so wood-lined sections of the path that the park installed because the path exists in a soft-land area that often stays wet and/or damp well after a good rain. You’ll see a few other examples of this in photos further down in the post. 

The photo above is another example of a mostly routine view of the trail ahead of me, while the first three photos below illustrate some interesting shadows I came across along the way. 

Perspective was another photography quality I tried to indulge Sunday. And on this day, it often involved looking upward. The photo above was the initial orientation I captured of this portion of a tree. I turned the camera to the landscape orientation to get a different perspective of the same tree in the photo below. 

 

Above and below: Two more “looking upward” shots while on the walk. 

Above and below: Some foliage along the trail’s loop portion farthest from the starting point. 

Trees — and/or portions of them — were another subject of the shoot. The photos above and the first five photos below are good examples. When my eyes first came across the third photo below, I initially froze in my tracks, thinking it was a snake poised to make a strike at me!

The photo above is a mid- to upper-section photo of one the most intriguing trees I came across close to the trail. The first photo below is a more details view of the tree’s middle and bottom sections, while the second photo below is a detail view of its lower section. 

Above and below: Two more sections of wooden-covered portions of the trail because of soft ground underneath. 

One of the reasons I like this trail for my walks is that it is undulating and riddled with tree roots. Actually, I’d prefer much less of the latter; one can easily trip on a root while tackling the trail at a brisk pace, and I sheepishly admit I do a brisk walk, even on this trail. So you have to be watching the ground almost constantly. The photos above and below are two examples of trees roots waiting for a visitor to pass successfully. Additionally, the one below is on a steep — albeit brief — climb. So a double hazard. 

The bridge over the pond (above) is ahead and to the left, signaling the two miles is nearly complete. All that’s left is a straight wooden bridge (maybe 330 feet long) and then a right turn into the parking lot.

Closing with a couple of “pretty” shots. The one above is a view of the turning colors as seen from the bridge over the pond (autumns colors are just starting to emerge) and the one below is a section of a creek off a second bridge deeper into the trail route.