Spring!
Sugar high :-)
We then proceeded over to the Cathance trails, where Sam showed us her favorite loop down along the river. Morgan was being a good little junior naturalist along the way, and was documenting our finds as we hiked along. Actually our nature finds started before we even began hiking, when Pippi schreeched to a stop on Highland Green Road, and we looked back to see something large like a snake, but definitely moving like a lizard, crossing the road. We backed up and all got out to take a look. It was pretty cool! I have seen a lot of salamanders and newts, but I honestly never knew there was a salamander that was this big. This thing must have been around 8". Amazing! I took a photo and posted it on Facebook, tagging Jeff, and of course, he knew right what it was. Thanks Jeff!
Spotted Salamander (You can't quite get a sense of the scale here, but he was bigger than my hand)
Although the day was warm and the sun was hot, we had a great time walking down to and along the river. It was cool in the shade and there was a nice breeze. Sam walked almost the entire 1/2 mile+ loop by herself and had a great time showing us around! :-)
Headed down to the river
Neenie, Pippi and the kiddos along the Cathance
Cousins
On the bog bridges
We had all sorts of great sightings along the trail today! Two wood frogs, one Kingfisher flying right through Barnes Leap, robins, phoebes, a Mallard, 5 turtles sunning themselves on fallen logs in the vernal pool, a newt in its aquatic stage swimming in the water right near the dock, some fiddleheads coming up near the river, a small patch of blooming Trailing Arbutus, and - almost as neat as the Spotted Salamander - eight Brook Trout (or so we assume from our research), thrashing around in the shallow waters, swimming upstream, and finally coming to rest in groups of 4 or 5 near a rock and a fallen branch. We stood and watched them for a while before heading home for lunch. It was very cool!
Do you see the fish?
Making a splash!
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