Nature Walk at Five Rivers

On Saturday we took a nature walk at the Five Rivers Environmental Center. We had a bit of fun in the visitor center before heading out to the Beaver Tree Trail.

Moose Consultation

Maddie took a heading in the parking lot before we headed out. She marked some way points as we walked along and later we will try to put her photos into those waypoints on a map. Well, maybe I should say Maddie and Brian will figure those out! 

This trail was very short but it still took us quite a long time to get around it. This was due to our need to stop and examine everything we saw that might be new! This included checking out the trees. We had just read in the past week that trees put out their buds in the fall when the light is better than in the spring.It was so much fun to look for them on the trees! 

We are participating in Fall Outside from Mud Puddles to Meteors. The challenge for the day was to look at things from an insects view so Maddie was crawling around to get some shots. You can see her photos here.

This was my shot from the bugs view. 

We are still trying to figure out the tree these cones were on. It had cones and long seed pods. No leaves so we are stumbling a bit!

Dam built by the Civilian Conservation Corp.

The green in the water is called duckweed. We pulled some up on our fingertip and were able to see the tiny rootlets!

When we headed back up to the parking lot to trade cameras for lunch another photographer stopped us and asked Maddie if we had seen the owl. No, where! was the quick response. The man was nice enough to take us right over to the spot on another trail right off the parking lot and point out the eastern screech owl snoozing away. He even made sure Maddie was able to get the owl with her camera before going back to his car to pack up. Maddie was so excited that all tips from Poppa Bill on how to get up close without a telephoto lens went right out of her head. She was very cute. Here is my shot. The owl is reddish brown but blends really well with the tree.

That was an excellent cap to a great day!