“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.”

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” Henry David Thoreau - American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862

Everyday I ride my stationary bike 8 kilometers to keep myself moving throughout the year.
The hot sunny weather in Western New York has me euphoric with energy to explore nature.

This morning I took a water bottle and camera for a morning adventure on my bike in search of nature in my own neighborhood. 

Here we are ;~)   This Great Blue Heron is a local resident of Clarence Town Park just behind my home .

http://www.conservenature.org/birds_of_wny/great_blue_heron.htm

view of the park from Goodrich Rd.

" The Town of Clarence was the first town to be established in Erie County (1808), and many other towns, villages, and cities have been formed from parts of this original town. In 1810, the City of Buffalo was divided out of Clarence.
 The local Native Americans called the area "Ta-Num-No-Ga-O," which means "Place of Hickory Bark."
  It is named after the House of Clarence in England. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence,_New_York

Our town had been building a healthy collection of trees in the Arboretum around the Town Park since the Clarence Library opened in September 2001.

http://www.erie.gov/clarence/arboretum.asp

The dog in the water has no clue if he is in Clarence Town Park or Lake Erie. Water is water and it was all good fun to cool off while the temperature climbs into the lower 90's today.

Western New York with it's constant flow of winds off Lake Erie is the best place to be in the summer ;~)