Isaac's First Nature Walk

One of the fun parts of doing daycare for my 4 yo nephew once in awhile is that I get him all day and we can do and see new things! In an effort to tire out the wiggles from the little legs, we went on a nice long nature walk to see what we could learn. We got lucky to see a LOT of bird life that day and learned some new trees too - he absorbs everything like a sponge and Mommy was very impressed.

The first thing we encountered was a gorgeous egret. Now we see a LOT of those in this area but I have never seen one this close or for this long. We sat and watched it wade in the shallows and eat for at least 20 minutes.


and by close, I mean REALLY close!


this was actually a pretty low branch but Isaac wasn't so sure about getting up in the tree until he was there - and realized that there were foot and hand holds just like his favorite climbing wall at the park. It was one of many trees he learned the name of that day (he's especially fond of the different kind of birches that line the trailway with Paper Birch as his favorite).


Another very rare sight for me - this is a Little Green Heron. I can only recall seeing one in person once before in my life and Isaac thought it was cool to see it only about 20 ft from us.


he LOVED the lily pads and the flowers.


a very pretty gold finch that flitted above our heads for awhile - Isaac can even tell you that's a boy and how to tell the difference between girl and boy.


This was actually later in the afternoon/evening. This is a juvenile Red Tailed Hawk that was the cause of a royal ruckus at my folks house between his shreaking and all the other birds complaining about him being there.


We got to see a lot of things that day but I couldn't believe how obliging the wildlife was. Here is a collection of stuff we got to see: