Tuscarora State Park (1-June-2016)

Trying to keep cool on another hot day I took a ride over to Tuscarora State Park and parked at a pull off and trail head above the lake. For the most part the trails here are shaded and stick close to the streams, a nice place to be on a hot day. 

An old glass jar, one of my first trash finds of the trip, came with a surprise. A Two-Lined Salamander! After snapping this photo I put the two line in the depression where the jar was and worked on cleaning the mud from the jar. 

Some portions of the trail were overgrown. Here Multiflora Rose was hanging over the trail in some places. As always when I'm near it, I got a couple thorns in me. Invasive species aren't cool. 

Looking down stream on the main branch of the Locust Creek. There are two streams in this section with the same name. The other is a small 1st order stream that flowing into this one.

For a couple items I had to get my feet wet. This plastic bag caught in a strainer was one of them. 

There wasn't much along the trails. These are a couple of the things I did find.

A juvenile American Toad. Most likely a hatchling from last year. 

A couple more things found along the stream. Normally I don't take broken glass but the bottle on the left was only missing its bottom. I am still surprised whenever I find round bottom 2-liter soda bottles like the one on the right. They generally don't look as though they have been in the environment for over 20 years and some look like they came off a shelf yesterday. This one being in the stream had a little wear, but not much after the mud was cleared off.

Looking down the channel where the Locust Creek meets Tuscarora Lake. From here I took a different route back to my car. Didn't find much trash on the way out.

For the amount of walking I did this really wasn't a lot of trash compared to other places. I'm happy about that and the other nice thing was that there was hardly any new trash items, almost everything had been there for awhile.

A juvenile Pickerel Frog. 

Green Frog on the left, American Bullfrog on the right.

This small school of Perch was swimming through the channel where Locust Creek meets the lake. Last week when I did the on the water clean-up here I did see a lot of Perch, just couldn't get a photo.
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

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