Lexington Estates Park, Great Falls, VA

I can't find much historical information on this park, but it is a nice bit of green space with a mostly mature forest (a lot of tulip poplar as with so many parks in this area) and a small pond.  I went out there today and found a single hiking trail through the park, which is mostly surrounded by subdivisions with nice houses on reasonable sized lots.

And just as I was finding a parking space, saw...

White-tailed deer! There are, of course, lots of these in the urban parks, but nice to get a good look at one in the sunlight.

This one was just off the park property in a backyard.  It didn't take long before the tail went up and it went off into the park and disappeared.

Next I saw two red-shouldered hawks, and grabbed a shot of one flying in a kinda quarter view, which is pretty good for showing the ID marks for the hawk.

Red-shouldered hawk showing tail bands, ruffy forarms, and wing banding with that sorta white spot out near the wing tips.

And then there was the pond.  All ponds are interesting for wildlife, and this one was no different.  As spring is late here, it was nice to finally see some dragonflies at the pond.  And I took this pic of...

Green darners (Anax junius) laying eggs.

Here the male is in front and has the blue abdomen, and is clinging to the female with the reddish abdomen.  After mating, they fly around together like this and land now and again so the female can lay eggs under the surface on vegetation.  This is the egg laying.

There is a good website on this species if you want more details at:

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Anax_junius/#reproduction

And finally, back to frogs.  As previously noted, the wood frog is the first to breed in northern Virginia.  Now, they are tadpoles, and the egg masses are just off-white blobs, as seen here...

Wood frog tadpole next to it's original egg mass.

A bunch of wood frog tadpoles

And it has been brought to my attention that I mentioned the end of the breeding season for the spring peepers, without showing a photo of such.  Well, this spring has been awful cold and all things are not on schedule and thus hard to predict when and where to find things.  I heard spring peepers a couple of times, but not in anyplace I could get to.  So here is a photo of one from a few years back taken in West Virginia, just to cover that photographic ground, so to speak.

A spring peeper (pseudacris crucifer) from West Virginia. And note that this is a very small frog, maybe 3/4 inch long.