Nature Walks

With the unofficial end of summer upon us, here is a very small sampling of Sam stopping along our walks to use (mostly) his nature app (mentioned back here). In a few instances, the app gave him so much trouble, he resorted to taking photos instead.

As an added bonus, I've also thrown in a few photos I took (or tried to) of some of his subjects...

 

One of the many rabbets we see on our college walks. Kind of blurry (the photo, not the rabbet). Sorry.

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This summer's high humidity and rainfall resulted in a bumper crop of wild mushrooms. Sam's Grandpa used to pick these and cook them when I was a kid. With my colorblindness, I don't trust myself to be able to tell the edible ones from the poisonous ones. The app won't clarify it for us... and I'm  pretty sure I wouldn't trust it if it did. We'll stick to buying wild mushrooms at the Farmer's Market.

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A tree frog on the eyesore-of-a-plastic-fence at the College.

A different tree frog (I'm assuming) on the same eyesore-of-a-plastic-fence at the College.

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This was going to be a photo of a ladybug but unfortunately, as is often the case, the app took too long to focus and the bug took off. We were not pleased -  with the app as well as the lack of cooperation by the ladybug.

 

We had better luck on a different day at a different location with a different ladybug (again, assuming).

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These photos were taken just the other night. We're not sure what this alleged bird is because, once again, the app wouldn't focus and the bird got sick of waiting before finally taking off and heading downriver. Pretty sure he was mocking us the entire time.

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The southern end of the canal is lined with an abundance of milkweeds and butterfly bush(es?) ("buddleia davidii", to their friends), so fortunately, this year at least, there have been a lot of Monarch Butterflies around. While those have been tough for us to get a good picture of, we've been lucky enough to spot several caterpillars...

... And along with the caterpillars, we've seen a number of their chrysalis (chrysalises? chrysali?). Haven't been lucky enough to have there when any of them opened. Yet. If this changes, we'll let you know.

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According to Sam's app (one it finally focused), this is a 'Great Egret' - or possibly a regular Egret that just thinks he's great - which may be why he hung around long enough for his photo to finally get taken.

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And here we have a photo of Sam trying to identify a very large toad. Jake had spotted this guy(?) in our driveway when he was home a few weeks back and he kindly turned his phone's light on it while Sam tried to get the app to focus on it - once again, with no luck. Anyway, it was a nice try - and a nice moment.

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There you have it. Not quite a summer's worth (considering Sam just installed the app a few weeks ago) but a nice collection, and nice memories, just the same.