A grayscale beauty: Why I like to walk around Mirror Lake on a cloudy day

There's a section of the Norfolk Botanical Garden that, even on the busiest of days, only a handful of visitors at best can be seen strolling the trail along Mirror Lake.  This section of the Garden was part of the original 'Norfolk Azalea Gardens' developed during the Great Depression as a way to generate revenue from tourists for the city of Norfolk, Virginia.  Over the years, however, the Norfolk Botanical Garden grew in size and added exciting amenities like a children's garden with lots of fountains, a showy tropical-themed garden, and tram and boat tours that wow visitors with large flowers and soaring bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).  These additions combined with the fact that the main entrance road breezes right past the Mirror Lake area without a clear pedestrian sidewalk makes Mirror Lake the most allusive and least-visited section of the garden.

Which is perfect.

On a sunny and bright day I prefer to join the crowds of people ooohing and aahhhing over large Hibiscus flowers or marveling at a giant agave plant.

But when it's cloudy and gray and damp and cool, the Garden becomes nearly vacant.  This is when I head towards Mirror Lake.

I  actually prefer to walk around Mirror Lake when it's gloomy and dank.  Songbirds hang low in the trees to avoid the northerly winds, and a Great-crested Flycatcher (Myiarchus crinitus) squawks and jeers loudly at my unwelcome approach.  Three or four yellow-bellied pond slider turtles (Trachamyss scripta scripta) are lined up on a log, hoping to catch an occasional ray of sunshine to keep their reptilian bodies active and hardy.  Azaleas fifteen feet tall shout loudly wit(h their colorful flowers dotted with droplets of cool dew and mist.  Wind whips through Loblolly Pine trees (Pinus taeda), and a Belted Kingfisher (Ceryle torquata) scurries over the calm lake onto another tree branch.

It's magic like this that brings me closer to nature: A rainy and cold day amongst the serenity of Mirror Lake. I laugh almost cynically at all of the people locked up in their houses missing out on this splendor that they never allow themselves to indulge into.

Mirror Lake at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.  Late April 2013.  Norfolk, Virginia.  



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