El Dorado Nature Center

I work a 4/10 schedule, meaning I work four 10 hours days a week and get the weekend and one weekday off. During football season I will take off Thursdays so I can photograph either the freshmen or jr. varsity football games. Now normally I would just relax at home until game time, but I really needed to get out and decided to head on over to the El Dorado Nature Center for a nice walk. I also thought I'd bring my camera to see what I can photograph. Those that know me shouldn't have to guess what lens I brought. For those that don't I brought my 300 f/2.8L. I didn't go until noon and knew that the activity would be very limited to squirrels and lizards.

So with my lens slung on my shoulder off I went. It was very nice out there. The weather wasn't too hot and there weren't many people out, so I was able to walk slowly while looking for wildlife. Shortly after you enter the Nature Center there is a small bridge. As I crossed the bridge I checked the surrounding shoreline and found this egret near the bank. So begins my walk about. Hope you enjoy the shots.

While walking along the paved trail I found this very large web just off the trail. Now I knew there would have to be a decent size spider somewhere nearby, so I began to search along the branches attached to the web and found this large spider. Now I hate spiders, but this guy was pretty big, approximately the size of a silver dollar. I had to manually focus my 300 to get this shot, but I think it was well worth it.
This was just a web along the trail that was back lit and made the web standout in the shadows of the trees.
Now this little guy was very friendly and jumped up on this log near me as if he wanted his picture to be taken. Who am I to deny a squirrel to have his picture take, so I took a few of him to share.