Nescopeck State Park (18-Dec-2015)

Hit the trails at Nescopeck State Park today, it ended up being a good choice. On my previous visits to this park, it has always been fairly clean. Although I did get a good amount of trash, it wasn't nearly as bad as the single trail I took yesterday. 

The first items of the day.

Like used diapers, I do not pick up full dog waste bags. There were many of them around Lake Frances. This is another thing that I can't figure out. An individual takes the time to pick up the dog waste with a plastic bag, ties it and throws it into the woods. If you aren't going to take care of the bag, why even bag it. Almost all of the bags I saw today were ones that the park gives out for dog waste disposal, by giving them out the DCNR is adding to the plastic waste littered around the park.

This is the work of some of the residents of Lake Frances. On the left is a recently felled Birch tree. The right, the lodge of the tree fellers. Nescopeck State Park has a healthy population of Beavers and the ones in this lodge enjoy the safety of living in a no hunting zone. 

Below Lake Frances, the beavers of this lodge had damed a culvert to raise the water surrounding their home. The local humans must have had a problem with this, they removed the plug on the culvert and drained the beavers watery oasis.

 It was interesting that after passing this sign I found no more dog waste bags on the trail sides. Now I don't think the sign has much to do with it, but I still found it funny. I think the reason the dog waste bags were all around the Lake and nowhere else along the trails was as a result of the lazy people who can't carry out a dog bag also don't go far from their cars. Fun fact: The lake is also the closest location to trash cans.

The bottle on the left was another that had a plastic cup on the bottom. There is a good likelihood that this bottle has been there since before the area became a State Park. The item on the left was along the stream. It was the seat to a tricycle.

The majority of the trash today was along the trails and the section of stream I walked was devoid of trash, with the exception of the tricycle piece. I found it refreshing walking a waterway that had pretty much no trash on its banks. 

This ballon was some distance off the trail. The bright shinny blue drew me to it. Please don't let balloons go into the air. That can't be said enough, it is the same as littering. 

When I got back to my car I could hear something moving around in the brush on the other side of the parking lot. I then heard bells, followed by a pheasant distress call and I watched a pheasant flying off with a ringing hawk in pursuit. This got my attention, I walked over for a closer look. The hawk was called back by a falconer in the brush. Can you see the two of them? 

In total while I was there the hawk flushed three birds. I think it was just being trained and was not actually hunting. No pheasants were harmed while I was watching.

This is what I removed off of the trails. 

After taking the non-recyclables to the nearest trash can I found this in the brush along the parking lot.

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash