A quick walk in Springwater Park Provincial Park

I had a couple more photos to finish up for the Nature Scavenger Hunt for Families that I am hosting so we headed out to Springwater Park today to get the last of our photos.

Playing in the stream at Springwater Park

On our walk in we saw this butterfly. He was camera shy though and this is the best picture I could get.

The girls were shocked when they first put their feet in this little stream. It was sooOooo cold! My feet were frozen in a matter of minutes. they still had fun exploring in it and we ended up freezing out feet for about 45 minutes.

I found this poor little bee clinging onto this stick floating in the stream too. I carried him to land so he could dry out his wings, rest and hopefully fly away safe and sound.

 Here he is starting to dry out but still not ready to fly. We left the stream before he flew away but I am hopeful that in a bit of time he would regain some energy and make it home. I wished I had something sweet on me to give him for energy but I had nothing. I did what I could though and hope for the best.

Sierra found this little slug on a log that stretched over the river. When she picked it up it slimed her with an orange stain and she was NOT impressed! No matter how much water and sand rubbing we gave her fingers it would not come off...hopefully the tub tonight will get it all cleaned up.

 Some other wild life I captured near the small waterfall...

Next we headed to the playground for a bit and Sierra found a tree she wanted to climb. However the bark was extremely rough and it wasn't a very pleasant experience...poor girl is having a rough day.

 We walked over to the pond to see the baby ducks.

 Here by the pond I got a wonderful surprise. Can you see what is flying in this picture? It's a Cedar Waxwing and believe it or not I don't think I have ever seen one before.

Not only did I see one but there had to have been at least 12 flying around. I wished I had my other camera with me but with my phone this was the best shot I could get of one at least.

On our way out the girls found a better tree to climb.

 And Aayla discovered this weird hole. I have no idea what lives in here but she bent down down and yelled in, "Is anybody home"? there was no answer and nothing scurried out in a hurry so it remains a mystery.

 Last but not least we saw this thing on the side of a tree which someone told me a Cicada hatched from it. I've certainly never seen a cicada before so it was a neat surprise too. The Cedar Waxwings were the best though and I will need to go back again soon with my other camera and hope they are still around.

Carden Nature Festival, Kawartha Lakes, Ontario

This past Saturday we headed to the Carden Nature Festival.

I wanted to sign up for some of their workshops but knew getting the girls up early enough to drive the 1 1/2hrs to get there before 9:00 was not going to happen; especially since they have had restless sleeps the past few nights with a cold. So instead after waking up at 9:00 we got ready and arrived at the festival around noon. Our first stop was the family fun fest and the Scales Nature Park display was the first stop.

The girls loved our visit there last fall and were eager to see the snakes again.

 Next Aayla wanted to get her face painted.

 I spoke with Sonia who is part of the local weavers guild about where to buy roving for needle felting and she offered to show me how to dye roving sometime which I may have to take her up on!

Then the girls headed to the art table where they made some leaf rubbings and a pair of binoculars.

Then they entered the art in the forest drawing contest. They found themselves a comfy place to sit and started their drawings.

 This is Aayla's spider in the forest.

Sierra drew a beautiful picture of an owl in a tree, with a Pegasus, 3 fairies, and a bee but she put it in the contest box before I got a picture of it finished

We saw a mini bee hive. Below Aayla is sniffing the holes in the sides as the honey smelled wonderful!

We sat and had our lunch and then we still had a bit of time before the bug safari so we went inside to see some of the displays. Sierra read all the names and the lady handed her the cards and asked her to put them back where they went and she got them all right.

 Sierra loved how soft the hat was woven from Musk-ox hair. We also learned that the Musk-ox protect their babies by the adults in the heard circling the babies to keep them warm and away from predators who could not get through the circle of horns showing. As well that Musk-ox have hooves but they are different from horses hooves, they are more like two toe hooves.

 Beside the beaver on another table was a beaver skull that someone found on one of the workshop walks in the morning. When you picked it up the tooth only looked about an inch long but if you carefully pulled it out in fact it's teeth are about 4-5" long.

Next it was time to head back outside to go on our bug safari. This was by far our favourite part of the day.

Everyone gathered around in the shade and they recapped what birds they saw in the morning and discussed our activities for the afternoon.

First up was bug catching. Everyone headed out into the field with a net trying to catch any critters they could.

 Sierra caught a couple different butterflies.

 Aayla caught a butterfly too.

 All the butterflies, bugs and dragonflies that everyone caught were put in clear jars to be examined for a little while.

A baby grasshopper

A dragonfly

Sierra with one of the butterflies she caught

When everyone was finished observing the creatures they all were let go and we continued the afternoon with a search for wild flowers. The group was dividing into smaller groups and headed back out into the field to see how many different wild flowers they could find hidden amongst the grasses. Here is what they found.

Oxeye Daisy

Meadow Buttercup

Cow Vetch (Bird Vetch)

Milkweed

Red Clover

Black Medick

Bird's-foot Trefoil

Narrow leaf Plantain (blooms just starting)

My favourite was this wispy wonderful mystery... Prairie Smoke and it's a new flower for me.

Prairie Smoke

After our wild flower search we discussed etiquette about picking flowers. Certain flowers like clover and dandelions are plentiful and are OK to pick in moderation but there are plants like Trilliums which die when picked that is not OK to pick at all...ever! We discussed how sometimes its fun to make nature art with things we pick and spent five minutes quickly picking a few common leaves and flowers to make art from them.

 

Can you guess what this is?

 The two hours for this bug safari flew by... but we all enjoyed our time here a lot. Our last activity for the bug safari was to line up in two rows. One row held nets and the other row walked towards the net row trying to chase out bugs and critters into the nets waiting. I didn't get a photo and we were only successful in catching one butterfly this way but I can see this working at the beginning of the day a little bit better.

Next we headed out on a wagon ride.

 When the ride was over the girls asked if they could pet King and Zach.

Then it was off to make a birdhouse.

Even though we didn't arrive until noon we crammed in a fun filled afternoon and will be sure to sign up for some of the workshops next year. Have you ever attended the Carden nature festival? Or other nature Festivals?