Fun on a nature walk

On Wednesday morning of this week the kids and I headed out the door and off in the van at 7:45 am. That is rather early for us but we wanted to go "birding" and our friend who is an expert in birding said we should go early, 6 am would have been better but starting at 8 am was going to have to suffice. :-)

   We went to the state park where we met up with our birding friend and her son and also another homeschool friend and her 4 children. As we headed off with 6 young boys and 3 girls, two strollers and one wagon as well as 3 mamas we realized that we just weren't that quiet as a group. So much for not having the birds notice us!

   We did hear a lot of pretty bird calling and were able to see some way up in the trees and our friend identified them but our children were a bit impatient when it came to long periods of standing and looking up into the trees so we ended up making our walk more into a plant identification walk instead of bird identification.

  We went on the "Bog Walk" at the park, where you walk on a wooden pathway over swampy areas. There were lots of flowers blooming and neat plants and we enjoyed reading the signs and the books we had brought along in order to learn more about them.

   The plant above is Labrador Tea and is used medicinally.

We saw a bunch of pink lady slippers which was very fun as we don't see them often.

Part of the crew (the slow walking group!)

These are Pitcher Plants. They are very cool because they "eat" insects.

Moths were discovered by the kids.

Mara very much enjoyed the walk and learning about new plants.

I am so thankful that God made so many neat plants and animals and we live in a place where so many beautiful ones are! I also feel blessed to be able to homeschool my kids and let them learn in such fun ways!