Huntley Meadows Park

Author's Comments

The boardwalk at Huntley Meadows is the kind of place that rewards staying put. I have watched photographers walk the full loop in twenty minutes and leave, and I have also watched a great blue heron hold a single pose for close to an hour while the light on the marsh slowly turned from pewter to gold. The second approach is the one that works here. The wetland itself is wider than you expect from the parking lot. Once you are out past the treeline and onto the central boardwalk, the cattails open up and the sky takes over, and on a still morning the reflection runs nearly unbroken across the beaver ponds. The snags that rise out of the water are where the herons nest, and in April and May you can watch them come and go from fixed perches that a long lens can actually reach. Dawn is when the beavers are still working. Dusk is when the frogs start and the light gets strange and pink over the marsh. I prefer this park in the shoulder seasons, when the cattails are either just coming up or going to seed. Summer gets green and flat and the insects are genuinely serious. October here is underrated. The marsh grasses turn a warm straw color that catches low sun beautifully, and the migrating birds move through in numbers that reward a patient morning. Bring more lens than you think. Bring a folding stool if you have one. This is not a place to hurry.

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