Afternoon Creek hike

It has been so dry and warm here this week, that we have spent a lot of time down at the creek. It's only about 1/4 mile from the house, but the trail is steep and it's really quite a hike.
The kids just love to get wet. We feed the fish, and catch (and release) crawdads.

The water isn't deep enough to swim, but it's still nice to cool off.

We also love to explore. Identify new wildflowers, plants or insects. Find and identify animal tracks or scat. This interesting looking plant is called Indian Pipes.

We found these lovelies on the edge of the bank. They had found some Blue heron scat, and they like to lick the minerals in it. The one on the left is a Red Spotted Purple, the one on the right in camouflage is a Question Mark. See the marking on his bottom wing? Looks like a comma and a dot...a question mark.

This is the Question Mark with his wings open.

We also found a pearl crescent.

Black-Winged Damselfly

This is a female Black Winged Damselfly, distinguished by the white spot on wing tips.

We originally thought this might be a damselfly about to deposit eggs in the creek. However, after we came home and did a bit of research, we figured out this was a male. So i'm not sure what he is doing. He was hanging upside down and dipping his tail into the creek.

These guys were everywhere dancing around. We also saw several swallowtail butterflies, deer and raccoon tracks and wild grapes. This is one of favorites places to hang out in the summer.