Chautauqua County has several trails converted from old rail beds. Today I walked on one that starts on Route 430 not far from the intersection with Route 394 in Mayville NY. I hiked in as far as the power line, then turned around. It was cold, but once I got moving, I was comfortable. The sky was partly clear… once in a while the sun peaked through. Mostly there was nice diffused light. Some of the puddles and parts of the marshy pond were frozen.

A lot of the leaves were already down, though a few still clung to branches.

I didn’t have a long lens on my camera. Can you see who is in the trail:

Here’s the same photo cropped real close (and not very sharp):

He could see us, but he couldn’t smell us, because the wind was blowing toward us. We looked at each for a long time before he ran off:

Back almost to the car, we saw these four lovelies:

It was a gorgeous day and a lovely little hike.