Bear Creek Eco Park Barrie, Ontario

We visited the Bear Creek Eco Park in Barrie for the first time the other day and we had a blast despite the troubles we had today with about 6 flat tires in total. Our slow leak became a problem today to say the least. If that wasn't bad enough I forgot my camera at home and had to rely on my iPhone for pictures. Of course as Murphy's law would have it my phone was at about 17% and I was sure it was going to die on me. So I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I usually do but we had a wonderful afternoon at the pond despite the troubles.

When we arrived it was fairly overcast. As soon as we saw the pond the girls wished they brought their nets (and I really wished I didn't forget my camera).

Our first discovery was a family of Mallard ducks. The babies were quite interested in us but mama kept making them swim the other way.

We walked along the board walk looking for frogs and turtles for our Nature Scavenger Hunt for Families and were quite disappointed when we didn't see any. I thought for sure we would see turtles here.

We continued a long the trail and the girls stopped to pick some wild raspberries.

Which gave me a moment to admire these sweet peas. They were such a pretty colour.

Then we were off again, along the wooded trail around the backside of the pond. It didn't take long for shoes to come off and pleas of "next time we come mommy we NEED to remember bring our nets please".

 We found eggs...which appeared to be in ribbons so I think they might have been toad eggs and not frog eggs but I am not positive. It's hard to see in the photo too but they weren't in a clump, but rather they looked like lines of ribbon. We would have liked to examine them a little more closely but they were out of our reach...if only we brought our nets, or boots...

 We did of course see some frogs.

 Sierra of course had to try to catch them but she had no luck with her bare hands today. Can you spot the frogs foot in this picture as it swims away.

We saw a Great Blue Heron but he was too far away from my phones capabilities for a good picture.

There were many flowers in bloom near the pond.

Not sure what these pink beauties are

Black Eyed Susans

Wild Bergamot

Swamp Milkweed with a snail

We saw many dragonflies and I chased them around like a crazy women trying to get pictures but this little guy who I think is a Meadowhawk was the only one who stood still long enough for a picture.

possibly a Meadowhawk Dragonfly???

While I was chasing dragonflies...my girls were exploring and meeting friends. We met a family of 6 on the trail and they caught a snake. Sierra was over there in a heartbeat!

After saying hello to the snake for a few minutes they let him go and Sierra ran off to try to catch frogs again with one of the girls we met. Aayla was happy looking for fish and throwing rocks with the other little girl. We explained to them we were looking for turtles and they offered to help us out a long the board walk. When we got back to the board walk it was sunny and there were turtles everywhere! This family had a net and caught one for us so we could get an up close picture of the turtle for our scavenger hunt.

We let him go after a few minutes and then they were off to try and catch frogs again. While doing so they caught a leech. This guy was big! Watching him swim he looked like a flat ribbon floating in the water but as soon as he was in the net he bunched up into a fat blob.

We exchanged numbers with our new friends and will have to plan another day to meet up at the pond as we all had a really great time! It was nice for Sierra to find another friend who is a frog loving girly girl just like Sierra is. We then headed to Gymnastics and stopped for ice cream on the way home before supper :) So we managed to turn our frowns from the flat tires upside down and had a wonderful day.