Weekend Nature Hike.

Just about every weekend, weather providing, we go for a family hike. Yesterday we had a few things to do in town, and decided to just hike along Beaver Creek again. It's a short hike, less than a mile, but it's quite pretty and we wanted to check for tadpoles. Last week we released the last of our frogs and the kids wanted more tadpoles to raise.

The trail follows the creek and is lined with a variety of wildflowers. We saw lots of Dame's rocket, fleabane, buttercups, wild azaleas and forget-me-nots. We also spotted many different kinds of butterflies, dragonflies, spiders, two snakes and a frog.


This lovely Dame's Rocket was everywhere.


We spotted yellow and black swallowtails, common buckeyes, commas and this Fiery Skipper.

This Common Buckeye Butterfly also posed for a picture, but the other butterflies just flitted by.

There were tons of these dragonflies everywhere.

We also came across this pretty cool mass of baby spiders. They are super tiny!! The whole mass was a little over an inch long. We gently blew on it, and the babies scattered everywhere! It was very neat to observe. i think these are probably the black and yellow garden spiders, but i'm not positive.

We also found what we had come looking for...tadpoles!!

We came prepared and had brought along a small jar and a bucket, and the kids had a great time catching a few. We brought home 15, and are excited to watch them transform!