First Nature Walk

This past week, we participated in a nature walk that a friend organized for us.  While we are always on the lookout for neat bugs and unusual sightings whenever we venture out of doors, this was our first official nature walk of the year.  It's amazing what can be found along a concrete path next to a lake!

Our first "discovery" was this bush covered in purple, velvety flowers.  I'm sure it has a name, and it's quite popular where we live, but the list of flora that I recognize consists of roses, Gerber daisies, and African violets.

Next up was the lake, where we found ducks and Canadian geese aplenty.  The boys were equally enthralled with the paddle boats, but those didn't exactly fall under our "nature" theme.

Canadian geese cover the grounds much of the year here.  We found a couple of birds with broken wings, which, while sad, helped the kids to better see how the wings are supposed to be folded up neatly on the backs of the geese. 

This face says it all:  one of the best finds of the day was a fuzzy black and orange caterpillar.  A quick Google search at home says it's a Tiger Moth caterpillar.  This little guy willingly crawled up lots of eager spark plug fingers, much to the joy of said spark plugs and the squeamishness of their mommy.

Of course, the squeamishness of the caterpillar was nothing compared to the queasiness induced by this snail...and no, I didn't touch it!  My friend very graciously offered to hold it up so that we could snap a picture.  The kids really liked it, though, since its markings were much lighter than the usual garden snail variety.  I was very eager to move on to the next adventure.  If only I'd known what was in store!

Amazingly, a docent from the San Francisco zoo was walking around with his pet Albino Burmese Python.  Now, there's something you really don't see every day!  Honestly, I liked the snake much better than the snail since it wasn't slimy.  Yeah, I'm weird like that.  T was all for having the handler put it on his shoulders, while K was content to view it from a very safe distance.

On the remaining portion of our walk, we found pine cones and clam shells and made bark rubbings with paper and crayons.  It was great to get some hands-on exploration of God's amazing creation.  The kids had a blast and continued hunting for bugs and special finds later that evening when we went out with Jon for a family walk.  They made one final discovery.

This is a small, black beetle that turned to a copper color whenever the fading sunlight hit it.  Again, we have no idea what variety it is, but they begged me to take a picture.  Who was I to argue?