Bog Study

It was a gloriously sunny morning, we rode our bikes down the hill.

YoungSon1 would have spent all his time in the water, studying the bog up close if we would have let him. That boy sure does love water.

The kayak was fantastic, it allowed him to go out into the tall grasses and paddle to places we never could have reached (well, we could have gone for a swim but it would have been quite cold and not as peaceful a way to observe the bog). 

YoungSon2 was happy to spend much of his time watching birds. Though he preferred to do so from the shore.

And the Birds! 

We saw so very very many birds. The swans are gone, but we watched red winged black birds, three of them playing. And ducks and ducks and more ducks (I don't remember all their names, today I will try write down who is who). And swallows flitting and diving. And Gulls. Bonaparte Gulls with their black heads. I was trying to see a Bonaparte Gull through the binoculars across the bog and Kirstin had the presence of mind to let me know that one was flying right in front of me - like 10 feet in front of me! I would have missed it because I was so into the binoculars. Which were very cool. They let me see close up these Mew Gulls. One or the other of a pair spent the whole time we were there nestled down in the middle of this island. If one flew away, the other took its place. It was so cute to see them wiggle their birdy butts to get comfy and settled. We wonder if they are on eggs. When YoungSon1 got close to their island, I was sure he would be bombed, but he turned the corner in the grass and gave them space. My camera could barley zoom enough, but that fuzzy white bit in the center is one of the Mew Gulls.

YoungSon3 had the presence of mind to look in a book when I was trying to figure out which sandpiper I was seeing. To bad it was a bug book he was looking in. Nice thought though.

And the baby green things.

 Gotta love the baby green things.

 I do love Yarrow.

 Bog Treasure!YoungSon3 was so so so excited to show these to me.

 

We played a great game. We broke into two groups (boys against girls - I could do a whole post on my opinion of this, but the this is where the older ones seem to want to take it and in some ways I feel like I'm fighting nature to try and make them do it any other way). Anyway... two groups... oh and each group walked away to search for 10-15 plant pieces. We brought them back and laid them all out in a nice order to look them over. Then each group took the other group's finds and went off to find matches. It was a good hunt. Every part was matched except for a root. It may have taken a lot of digging to figure out which root it was. 

Besides, more important hunts needed to take place by this time. The frogs were calling...