Sometimes we take walks in the woods behind our property “to see what we can see.” Sunday afternoon we took one such walk specifically to look for bloodroot. I have a fondness for it for no other reason than the fact that I think it’s pretty. We identified some of what we saw, but not all.
praying mantis egg case (not considered exciting by my kids, but Gabe will tell you “mommy’s excited about them.)
We don’t know birds…does anyone know what species of bird may have made this nest?
common winter cress
cedar apple rust gall
fiddleheads, but I don’t know what type. I do have a field guide for ferns, but haven’t ever really looked through it!
This was the “once in a lifetime moment” of our walk. Gabe pushed on a standing dead tree and out flew a southern flying squirrel! If you look closely, you can see it on the tree to the left of Seth in this photo. When I heard the kids crying out, “flying squirrel!” I thought they were kidding.
Flying squirrels are the only nocturnal tree squirrels, and therefore it’s not too often that you see one! This was a first for me.
The squirrel seemed disoriented and allowed me to get pretty close with my camera before scampering on up the tree. I was worried about it finding it’s way back over to it’s home in the dead tree, but in our research tonight we learned that flying squirrels have exceptional homing abilities from far greater distances than just the tree next door.
Cute little guy! I read that they store up to 15,000 nuts in a season.
may apple
star chickweed
shining club moss?
Bloodroot
most haven’t bloomed yet
I found this one with it’s flower almost ready to open up. tomorrow.
I was the first to spy a morel.
Soon we had an entire handful. We’ll saute them in butter. The kids love them. Jonny and I don’t eat fungi.
We aren’t sure what this is yet; an orchid of some sort. We’ll be visiting every day until it blooms.
Blue blister beetle. Do you see that orange fluid on it’s head? Blister beetles exude a nasty liquid that can cause a blister if it comes in contact with your skin.
jack-in-the-pulpit
downy rattlesnake plantain (orchid)
That little seedling on the right that hasn’t unfurled it’s cotyledons is an Amercian beech. I know because the seed’s shell was perched on top before I pulled it off to look at it.
Spring is my favorite time of year in the forest, at least until it’s autumn. Then autumn will be my favorite.
p.s. I used my 35 mm lens
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The photos are wonderful; just so beautiful! The squirrel had such big eyes!
Hi Ginny. Thanks for the photos of green things. In Ontario, we’ve had an incredibly early spring that has just been paused by another deep freeze, so on our walk in the woods today we found tiny traces of trout lilies, one courageous trillium, and ice! I’m writing to thank you for the inspiration. You’ve planted the seed in my mind of documenting our forest finds. Thanks so much.
Beautiful photos of the family and forest! Thanks so much for sharing the with us.
i love the outdoors, as do you and all the kids…..and i love your photos !!
i see they look like they were well covered, clothing wise……otherwise i’d be preaching about ticks 🙁
i wrote about my horrific bite from one today on my blog…..they are just plain nasty things !!!
In our neck of the woods ticks are part of everyday life if you want to enjoy the outdoors unfortunately. We do “tick checks” nightly!
That is our kind of day indeed. Wonderful. Wish we could have joined forces and hiked together that spring day!
Very beautiful! Girl you are so knowledgeable,and so blessesed to have such beautiful woods right in your own backyard.
Gorgeous pictures!! Thanks so much for sharing them. It was fun to see what the forest looks like there.
Love, Taryn
I always look forward to reading your blog. Such beautiful photos from your walk! And I learned so much just now.
Love this walk–felt like i learned a lot! thank you xxxooo
What a lovely walk!! A lot can be learned when taking a walk through the woods! Beautiful photos as well!!
My son had some blister beetle juice put onto a sore on his face at the dermatologist. It was fun to see the blister beetle up close!
Ginny, the nest looks like it could be a hummingbird nest…was it tiny? Great pics!! Always enjoy your walks in the woods!!
Lovely photos! Thank you so much for taking us along on your walk. 🙂
Your natural knowledge is so inspiring and makes me want to spend more time with field guides.
What wonderful photos! thank you for sharing these magical moments with us.
Ginny – I must say your blog is my absolute favorite! I love moss and collected some of the club moss last week on my walk with my Grace for my terrariums! And squirrels – we don’t have them here in Australia – but I remember when I lived in Canada loving watching them sit on the window-panes. Beautiful walk, beautiful photographs! xx Rach
Ginny, thanks for a lovely walk. I can not speak English well so I use the compiler :). May I ask what camera you use? The images are really beautiful! God bless you, Mija from Czech Republic.
Brilliant post and wonderful nature walk. Made me miss homeschooling my kids when they were small.
Love Leanne
ps those squirrels look way cute!
I so enjoyed our walk through the woods. Thanks for taking us along with you. And Keats has really gotten tall or maybe it’s just the angle of the camera. But he looks like he’s grown several inches. I was amazed at all the plants you have growing around you! And even more amazed that you seemed to know all their names! I would love it if you’d take us along the next time you and the kids head out for a walk in the woods.
These pictures remind me of my rain spring days in Southern Oregon. What a great adventure!
Beautiful photos! Perhaps your nest is an orioles? Also jealous of your morels! We have been hunting to no avail! Thank you for sharing. We once had a flying squirrel jump out of our lint screen!
All that greenery is lovely. I’ve only seen a flying squirrel once, they are amazing. We have a lot of the same plants here in New Brunswick, Canada. Blood root, jack-in-the pulpit, etc….do you have lady’s slippers? They are my favorite.
Lovely photos, and it’s fantastic that you can identify so many plants.
The nest looks like a hummingbird nest of some sort. You should get some bird guides – I think you and yours would enjoy it 🙂
I don’t comment very often, but I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this post this morning! 🙂 Thank you!
I’m definitely jealous of your morels. There are people that go morel hunting for the sole purpose of selling them for major profit. Apparently they’re sought after? I don’t know. This is something I learned watching a show on either HGTV or TLC……
I’m wondering if the plant that you didn’t identify but thought it might be an orchid of some sort could maybe be a trillium. The trillium in my yard look just like that. Btw, I live in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Our seasons might be similar.
Thanks for the nature walk!
What amazing finds. I love this time of year too. Everything is waking up from a long sleep and unfolding their lazy fronds…perfect. Especially if I can do a bit of foraging. The flying squirrel is so cute…what enormous eyes…oh and I love your daughter’s green shoes…
http://www.thebirdersreport.com/egg-and-nest-identification
This is a neat site that has a couple of nests that look like yours! Not sure if they are found in your state, though!
http://www.thebirdersreport.com/egg-and-nest-identification
Wow, what a wonderful walk and lots of great finds. The perfect way to spend an afternoon.
I love flying squirrels! They are so shy and hard to find. The only one I ever saw came to a platform bird feeder at night and I still only saw it behind a big window. If it saw any movement at all it ran off. What a great find!
Lovely photos. 🙂 Here in the Cascade Mountain foothills of SW Washington, spring comes on a little slower and later…we’ll be doing the same soon. You’ve inspiring me to share what we find as well. One of our projects this year is to identify all the tress on our small acreage and to begin identifying the plants — should be a terrific science project.
Blessings, ~Lisa
PS: Are you discontinuing your garden journal linky? I was excited by the accountability factor I hoped it would provide for my kids and me.
that will be a great project!
garden journal is this saturday. it’s every other week. thanks for asking!
Great! Will join you on Saturday, then. 🙂
Blessings, ~Lisa
Just beautiful! What a blessing your kids have to have you as their guide!
So beautiful! Loved learning about what’s growing in your area. And the squirrel was amazing!
I think the nest is a hummingbird nest. Great photos!
I would love to know what guide book you used to identify all the wonderful plants! That squirrel is adorable! Have fun this spring!
Hi Esther! Some of them we just know, and the others we look up in any one of many field guides. I sort of collect them….I will try to figure out which ones are my favorite though and mention them next time I do a post like this. I am sure it won’t be long. Thanks!
Wonderful post-I am so impressed with your ability to identify thing!
Just curious, why don’t you eat fungi? If it’s not too personal 🙂
No major reason other than both of us have a dislike for it. It’s a texture issue for me. I do try to make myself eat mushrooms if I am offered them because they are good for you. I am always hoping that my tastes will change. I may taste a tiny tiny bite of a morel today.
Loved the walkabout in the woods. Thanks for mentioning what lens you used. The close ups were incredible-I need to start saving pennies.
It’s a good lens for the money. There is a newer version out there now, a 1.8 I think maybe even a 1.4 which would be awesome.
What treasures you all found!
I love this post!!! I love plants, but could never identify them as you can. Except for the fiddle heads, ferns make me happy for some reason.
When I was a child I got to see a flying squirrel move her babies from their nest to somewhere else. It was amazing watching her fly through the air. I was so lucky to be able to watch it!
Maribeth that would have been so cool to see!!!
I wish we could have started our nature hikes this week. It’s a bummer when a mama’s sick. We loved the pictures and my five year old’s favorite was the flying squirrel.
Loved the walk and the pictures!
I was recently surprised to hear that garlic mustard is less of a threat than it used to be, at least in many areas.
Wow, what great photos I bet it was an wonderful walk. You have lovely surroundings there!
Do you know fungi well? I love it, but I wouldn’t eat anything I would get in the woods!
I wish I could say that I do know fungi well. I had a couple of fungi courses in college but they didn’t focus on mushrooms, more on disease causing fungi. I don’t remember much of that either. Oh well.
Awesome photos and such a window into your forest. I adore the blister beetle with all its exuding nastiness.
Great pictures Ginny, love learning about the different things you found in nature. We too went on a walk in our woods (to see what we can see!) and found lots of spring woodland flowers, including Blood Root! Also lots of wild leek which is quite tasty and fun, our kids love it. An incredible time of year to be in the woods!
Ginny, I can’t tell from the angle of the photo, but the nest reminds me of a hummingbird nest. [?]
Thank you for the great walk, your woods are beautiful.
Wow – some great finds! I never regret getting out there. A flying squirrel, though, has to be the best! (although morels in butter are 2nd best!)
Thanks for the lesson! Very educational.
Oh, how I wish I could identify all of that. I have a friend that can but she lives an hour away so I don’t think it’s feasible to call her up every time the kids and I want to go for a walk. 😉 I enjoyed this, though!
Julie, with a couple of field guides and google image searches you could do it yourself!!
I was just thinking the same thing Misty wrote! And what a beautiful woods you have. We don’t get that here in the city & I miss it—I loved wandering in the woods when I was a child… xo
Wow- I feel like I learned more from that walk in the woods than I did in Senior Biology! How wonderful that you identify what you find and research about it all. I’m looking forward to more of these walks “with” your family. Do you ever see poison oak or poison ivy? I would love to see a photo of those so that I can identify them in our own backyard woods!
We have tons of poison ivy. I will try to remember to include a photo next time!