Blog From The Bog

Rainy Day Adventure - Hylebos at Flood

The bridge on the Brooklake Spur, water flows under the entire span.  

Early October at West Hylebos Park

Halloween is quickly approaching and I can barely restrain myself.  My Halloween post is my very favorite post every year and appropriate items are beginning to make an appearance in the park.  They make me giggle with childish glee and wonder whether I'll find enough to post my Halloween blog later if I lose control and start posting eerie things now.  What am I worried about?  It's the wetland, of course I will!

All of the arachnids (spiders) are hard at work.  Spider webs are everywhere, waiting to slap unwary visitors in the face or stick to their caps or hair, dangling spiders in their faces.   Don't you love the slap of sticky spider webs across your face in the morning?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of them are hard at work spinning silvery strands of silk into beautiful fabric for ballgowns.  The fairies are preparing for their annual Fall Ball, you know, and gowns are in demand all over the park.  Every fairy wants to be dressed in the very finest the park has to offer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leftover threads snatch falling leaves from the air, then the breeze spins them around like magical whirligigs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here and there, mysterious eyeballs are poking up out of the ground.  Are they watching you as you cruise down the boardwalk, chatting, or running, or pushing a stroller, not paying attention to what's around you.  You may not be watching the park, but the park could be watching you.  Bwaaaahahahaha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beware of sharp snaggly teeth hiding along the edges of the boardwalk.  Will they snap at you and grab your toes as you wander by?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This female wood duck was swimming around in Marlake making noises that sounded for all the world like crying.  Her plaintive pleas nearly broke my heart.  Where is her mate?  Where are the other wood ducks.  Are they migrating?  Did she get lost?  

 

 

 

 

 

Although the wood duck sounded lost and lonely, she wasn't entirely alone in the lake.  She may have been lonely for ducks of her own species, but two pairs of mallards shared the lake with her.   As I was standing there looking at the lake, Scott Buck came out on his back porch.  All four mallards immediately left the lake and waddled over to the porch, looking for a hand-out.  I could hear and see Scott waving his arms at them and yelling, "Shoo!  Shoo!", then he went in the house.  As soon as he shut the door,  the ducks spotted me and immediately started their waddle in my direction.  If they can't con food out of the man in the house, maybe they can con some food out of the nice lady with the camera.  Sorry ducks, you won't get anything to eat from me, either.  You need to eat proper duck food.  It's not good for you to become dependent on human food.

 

This beautiful slug must be on his way to the Fall Ball.  He's all dressed up in his very best spots.  He looks quite the dapper gentleman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother Nature is busy dusting the wetland floor with beautifully colored leaves.  Sometimes the fairies sit in these leaves and ride them through the sky, smiling and laughing, yipping and crowing, squealing and screaming, and having a wonderful time.  Can you hear them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cattails were bowing their heads in the wind.   They kind of reminded me of stands full of cheering fans at a football game, doing the wave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The northwestern thatching ant ranch between benches two and three is closed for the season.  That doesn't mean that the thatching ants are gone though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The northwestern thatching ant hill is doing very well, indeed.  So well, in fact, that I didn't want to get too close to it.  There were literally thousands of ants swarming on and around this hill.  Can you see their big red heads and their round black eyes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last, but not least, I leave you with Laser Cat.  That's my cat, Miss Belle, watching television.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  Sweet dreams, my friends.  Sleep with one eye open.  You never know where she might show up next, nor what she might do while you're sleeping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest

October Arrives

October greeted us with a big, beautiful harvest moon.   I felt really lucky to have gotten this shot because I've tried to photograph the moon before and gotten nothing but a big bright spot without any definition.  Our lovely moon is quite beautiful, don't you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were a lot of beautiful things to see in the park today.  The vine maples were blazing, adding gorgeous splotches of vivid orange among the usual myriad of greens and browns.  All of my favorite colors in one place.  Nothing wrong with that!

 

 

 

 

 

The false-lily-of-the-valley berries have started to turn red.  They start out green and, by mid-winter will be a vibrant red, but this stage is my favorite.  Every year I think about how happy I'd be if I owned jewelry that looked just like this, ecru splotched with chinese red.  Delightful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember when I told you that the beautiful lavender blooms that twined within the pacific trailing blackberry and salmonberry canes would form berries that were deadly poisonous?  Here they are.  This is deadly nightshade, otherwise known as European bittersweet.  Bittersweet, indeed.  This will kill you very quickly.  Beautiful leaves, beautiful blossoms, and beautiful berries;but oh, so deadly.  Don't let looks deceive you.  This can kill.  Please look, but do not touch.

 

 

 

 

 

Dragonflies are still busy laying eggs at both lakes.  See how this one is dipping it's abdomen into the water?  Here, there, and everywhere, dragonflies are laying eggs that will, in time, become new dragonflies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No wonder this cardinal meadowhawk is taking a break.  Creating future generations is exhausting.  Actually, for a dragonfly, creating future generations is a terminal disease.  Once they finish laying their eggs, they die, just like salmon.  Dragonfly nymphs and salmon fry have to figure everything out by themselves, no parents involved.  Puts your mom and dad in a whole different light, doesn't it?  Thanks, Mom!  I love you!

 

 

 

It was overcast, chilly, and a little foggy when I left the house, but gartersnakes were busy trying to warm themselves anyway.  Luckily, the fog burned off and it actually warmed up a bit by afternoon.  There are still some warm days ahead when hungry snakes can warm up, and fatten up, before it gets cold enough to hibernate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nuts are starting to fall off of the trees.  Take a good look at these nuts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, these.  Remember what they look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now this scat found in the middle of the boardwalk.  That's my foot in the picture, women's size 6.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anything look familiar?  I also see what looks like bits of apple.  We've seen this in previous years.  Fish and Wildlife tells us that this is typical coyote behavior.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Douglas squirrels are busy collecting douglas fir cones.  Some they'll eat now, others will be stored to last them through the winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In some areas of the park, you will be lucky to get across sections of the boardwalk without being clobbered over the head by falling fir cones.  Don't say I didn't warn you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, of course, this is the very beginning of fungi season.  Last year was a banner year.  The number of different fungi that I found in the park was amazing.  I can't wait to see what I find this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Week Of Autumn

I can't believe that it's autumn already.  It'll be October in another week.  How can that be?  Where has the year gone?  Time is moving at such breathtaking speeds that I can only stand and stare at the calendar in utter disbelief.  Of course, I haven't exactly been sitting around letting moss grow between my toes.  I just got back in town the week before last and I'm leaving again next week.

 

Aside from West Hylebos Park, this is one of the things that's been keeping me occupied.  It's called steampunk.  If you haven't heard of it, you should google it and check it out.  Steampunk is full of movers and shakers, designers, artisits, musicians, authors, film-makers, and creators of all kinds.  It's loads of fun for the whole family.  Everyone from eight to eighty is in love with steampunk.  Steamcon IV will take over in Bellevue the weekend of October 26th.  Why don't you set aside that Saturday or Sunday to drop by and check us out?  You might end up joining the steampunk evolution.

 

 

September 24th was a perfect day to visit West Hylebos Park.  The weather was gorgeous and, although a lot of the plant-life in the park is busy shutting down for winter, there was actually quite a bit of activity going on.  Snakes, for instance, could be found sunning themselves along the edges of the trail. 

 

 

 

 

 

There have been far fewer brush rabbits this year than in the two previous years, but you can still find one here and there.  I spotted this one over near Marlake.  It looked like it was trying to find a way through the fence so that it could raid Becca's garden.  Naughty bunny!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw a Steller's jay flitting from tree to tree near the beginning of the boardwalk trail.  They usually emit loud warning calls when they spot me, but this one either didn't notice me or was too busy to care.  He was so quiet that, if it weren't for his movement, I'd never have know he was there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This beautiful young sparrow was eating berries from one of the hawthorn trees.  It may have been a young white-crowned sparrow, but I wasn't able to get a good enough look at it, so I'm not sure.  As soon as the birds begin migrating, the hawthorn should be full of hungry birds, but I haven't witnessed huge flocks of birds moving through yet.  Nights are getting very cool though, so the signal to move should occur any time now.

 

 

 

 

Chickadees were, of course, being chickadees.  They're such clowns.  The minute they notice a person moving down the trail, they start flitting from branch to branch, chirping up a storm, as if they're deliberately trying to attract attention.  They're such hams!  Several much larger birds (judging by their sound) in the forest seemed to be extremely upset by something.  They were creating an enormous racket that could be heard throughout the park.  I spent a lot of time trying to spot what was making all of the noise, but they were too far back in the woods for me to see them from the trail.  Whatever was upsetting the bigger birds didn't seem to bother the chickadees at all.  They appeared to be oblivious to the din.

 

A spotted towhee was also making it's unusual call.  Nothing sounds quite like a towhee.  Speaking of distinctive sounds, when I was over by the giant sitka spruce, I could hear the hoot hoot, h-o-o-t, hoot hoot, h-o-o-t, of an owl coming from the opposite side of the wetland.  Of course, there was no direct route to where the hooting seemed to be coming from.  No matter which direction I chose to go, it was going to be a long loopy trek to the other side.  The hooting had long stopped by the time I got over there and I couldn't spot an owl anywhere in the area.  Oh, well.  I tried.  Win a few - lose a few.

 

 

The pacific water parsely is in seed now.  These prolific plants disappear in the winter, then grow so rapidly throughout the spring and summer that they completely clog the open water where they grow.  In the summer they put out large heads of lacy white blossoms that remind me a little bit of Queen Anne's lace; then, in the autumn, the white blossoms transform into these brilliant reddish-pink seed-heads.  They are absolutely gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

We haven't had any more than a trace of rain in a very long time, so Marlake is rapidly shrinking.  All of the grass you see growing in the lower portion of this photograph should be underwater.  As dry as it seems to us right now, it's still not as dry as it was last year at this time.  Last year, I was able to walk out to the very middle of the fallen logs on the north side of the lake and photograph the lake from there.  Yesterday, that area was still under water, impossible to walk on.  But, even that wasn't as bad as it can get.  

 

 

 

 

This is what Marlake looked like about ten years ago.  Now, that was a dry year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  There are still plenty of dragonflies around to watch.  These are my favorites.  Even though they're so curious and will fly right up and hover in front on you, wondering what you are, they're nearly impossible to photograph.  Every part of these dragonflies is in motion, so all I usually get is a great big blur.  This is actually the clearest photograph I've been able to take so far.  My camera just isn't fast enough to stop the motion.  Every time I see one of these, I think of dinosaurs.  I mentioned that to a young gent I was escorting through the park one day and he broke into an ear-to-ear grin.  "Dinosaurs!  Yeah!  We need dinosaurs!"  Kids have also told me that we should have crocodiles; or, at the very least, alligators.  If a trip to the park meant risking a chance of being eaten, I wonder if that would decrease or increase the number of visitors?

 

Frogs were croaking all over the park.  You'd almost think that it was spring with all of the croaking going on.  I must have seen at least a dozen frogs, although I have rarely been able to find the chorus frogs who are actually doing all of the singing.  Some of the frogs were sitting right out in the open, contrasting beautifully with the background.

 

 

 

 

 

Some were so well camouflaged that you would have to know what you were looking for and really concentrate in order to see them.  There are actually two frogs in this photograph.  Can you see them?  One is on the upper left.  The other is on the lower right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one was actually sitting inside of a hollow tree stump.  He was so far back in the dark that I didn't think my camera would be able to see him, but there he is.  Look at how long his toes are and how pointy his nose is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I was preparing to leave the park, I spotted Dana Buck up on a ladder, painting her house.  It's still going to be yellow, but a lighter, brighter, cleaner yellow.  She and I are both huggers; so, as soon as she saw me, she climbed down off of her ladder and ran over to give me a hug.  We both burst out laughing when my eyes got big and I backed away from her.  Ah, no, I don't think so.  I love you, Dana, but I'm not going to hug you!  LOL!  Next time, I promise!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honey, I'm home!

Just got back from another trip to San Francisco.  My daughter got accepted to Berekely as a junior, so I flew down to visit her and tour the campus.  She's a geology major, while everyone knows that I love snakes and frogs, so we squeee over different things, but we both squeee over Berkeley.  Some of my squees were so loud and excited that you might have been able to hear them clear up here in Federal Way.  I had two travel days and four days of fun in the city, which included three concerts, consisting of seven bands.  This old lady is pooped!  Never-the-less, I felt compelled to visit the park the day after I returned home from my trip.  It was a beautiful day and nature rewarded me for my effort!

The park is beginning to close down for the cold winter that lies ahead.  This makes a lot of people very sad.  Everything seems to be dying, as so many vibrant greens slowly turn yellow, then brown, then disappear.  I think that every season is beautiful in it's own way.  Instead of focusing on the  dying aspect of the season, let's look for the beauty in the season.  Come with me.  Let's see what we can find.

 

The fireweed has turned to spiky fluff, which somehow manages to look both soft and prickly at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thistles have also reached the fluff stage.  Nature's objective is for these seeds to be light enough to be carried away on the wind, hopefully to land on a lovely spot far away where they can put down roots and grow.  This plot to cover the earth with thistles seems to be somewhat successful, despite the fact that you can find thistle fluff lodged in some really peculiar places.

 

 

 

 

 

The northwestern thatching ants are really busy right now.  Unlike humans, the park's creatures can't run over to Winco, or Fred Meyer, when the plants they live on die away for the winter.  This is the time of the year when they're busy stocking their larders with as much food as possilbe, so they have enough food to sustain them until spring returns.

 

 

 

 

The squirrels are especially funny to watch at this time of the year.  Squirrels are not only busy trying to find, collect, and store enough food to last them through the winter, which is the preferred method, but some of them seem to be actively involved in locating and stealing the food that other squirrels have already found and stored.  Squirrel A may find an acorn, dig a hole, and bury it; but, as soon as Squirrel A leaves, squirrel B will run over, dig the acorn up, and bury it someplace else.  No wonder they look so lost when it's time to retrieve their nuts, nothing is ever where they leave it.  The acrobatics they go through to obtain their nuts rivals anything the woman's gymnastic team can do.  Acorns grow on the very ends of branches, where the limbs are thinnest.  The squirrels have to be very talented to get that far out and manage to capture an acorn without falling off.  I've seen some of them flip completely over, ending up upside-down, facing in the wrong direction.  I've seen some fall and somehow manage to snag a lower limb as they shoot past.  I've even seen some of them fall and bounce off the roofs of cars parked below.  I can't watch them without laughing my head off.  Their antics are amazing!  The Douglas squirrels in the park get very aggressive at them time of the year.  They just want people to go away and leave them alone so that they can go about their business.  This particular Douglas squirrel was being very vocal.  Even after I finished photographing my frog and was well down the boardwalk trail, I could still hear this squirrel loudly chewing me out.  They get so wound up that their whole bodies quiver when they yell at you.

Speaking of frogs, look at some of the beauties I found today.  I seemed to find frogs everywhere, although people visiting the park seemed to scoot right by and not see anything at all.  Most of the people I saw were moving quickly and talking up a storm.  They never saw a thing.  I love our little frogs!  They come in all different sizes, shapes, and colors, and can be found in so many different places.  For the most part, they don't even move.....they just sit there, sometimes for hours at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some are so well camouflaged that they're hard to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, some are hiding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, others are sitting right out in the open.  This one was actually sitting on the boardwalk!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw seven snakes today.  Seven!  Some were right out in the open, like this little fellow essing his way across the gray gravel trail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While others were a little more difficult to spot.  

Some were alone; but, in one spot along the back side of Marlake, I spotted four snakes all sunning themselves together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cooler nighttime temperatures are causing the leaves to begin to turn.  These are red-huckleberry leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vine maple leaves are turning a vibrant, fiery, red-orange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at this beautiful bracken!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother Nature is quite an artist.  She leaves beautiful still-lifes all over the park.  How many can you find?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spiders are busy everywhere!  This seems to be their most active time of the year.  If you're among the first to visit the park each day, you'll have the honor of walking through all the webs they string across the boardwalk trail, clearing the trail for those who follow.  I thank you for that.  Getting smacked in the face by spider webs is not among my favorite things.

 

 

 

 

  Some of the birds double-nested this year and the young from the second batch of eggs are nearly ready to fledge.  These youngsters should be gone any day now, although mom and dad were still feeding them at the time that I took this photograph.  These are barn swallows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A busy muskrat poked his head up at me at Marlake.  About a half a dozen mallards were also visiting the lake, the males having lost their beautiful mating plumage and looking a little shabby right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, of course, this is the time of the year when all of the beautiful fungi appear.  West Hylebos Wetland has a treasure-trove of fungi in every size, shape, color, and design that you can think of.  The park is a fungi-lover's paradise!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest

 

 

September Arrives

I can't believe that it's September already.  September the 5th to be exact.  Sure proof that time flies by when you're having fun.  Here, in Federal Way, we're very close to setting a new record for the most days without measurable rainfall in a row.  We may not make it, as a little light rain might move in this weekend, but it's going to be close.  If we get anything that you could call summer (by most state's standards) around here, it doesn't arrive until after the middle of July and usually departs by mid to late August.  Our overnight temperatures are cooling off into the mid-40 degs F., but the daytime temps are still averaging in the high 60's - low 70's, with even a few 80 degree days possible in the very near future.  65 - 75 degs F. is considered perfect around here, but you're liable to hear a little grumbling when the temperature rises into the 80's.

One of the first things I did upon arrival today was retrieve this dragonfly nymph exoskeleton.  Unfortunately, I neglected to bring a box with me with which to keep it safe and preserve it for our collection.  I rummaged through my pack, but could only find a little zip-lock bag.  I should have left the exoskeleton in situ (which means, in place) until I remembered to bring a box with me, but I did not.  I carried my zip-locked treasure throughout the park with me and managed to entertain three different families full of children with the story of the dragonfly nymph before the poor little exoskeleton accidentally got crushed.  I actually spent some time examining it, thinking that maybe I could repair it with a toothpick and a little super-glue, but it truly was crushed beyond my ability, so I ended up putting it in the trash.  Maybe, next year.  One never knows.  I'll have to keep my eyes open and see what I can find.

I was busy photographing these water-striders when one family ambled by.  They stopped and asked me what I'd found, so I pointed out what I was looking at.  They said that they'd come looking for frogs, but hadn't found any.  That really surprised me, because I'd found quite a few frogs already and was only halfway through the park.  I spent a few minutes pulling the frog photos up on my camera, so that I could show the family what I'd found.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found frogs in most, but not all, of the usual places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in some places where I've never seen frogs before.  Since the weather has been so dry, for so long, the frogs are having to search for new water-holes in order to survive.  When one source of water dries up, they're forced to hop off in search of one that hasn't.

 

 

 

 

  

 

I saw a lovely garter snake in between the Sitka spruce and the Deep Sinks.  As I was leaving the park, I ran into two gentlemen with heavy accents that told me they'd just spotted another garter snake sunning near the trail.

 

 

 

 

 

The plums are ripening.  Most are still a little hard, but some of the ripest ones are starting to fall off of the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scat was deposited in the middle of the boardwalk trail in several places.  You can see that it's full of fur and hard round objects that are probably plum pits.  Sometimes I find scat full of nuts, but the nuts have not ripened and fallen from the trees yet and the only thing I can find in the park right now with pits similar to these are the plums.  Leaving scat in the center of the boardwalk like this is coyote behavior.  While searching for a likely source of pits, I stopped and ate some plums myself but, unlike the animal that left this scat, I refrained from eating the pits.  Remember, we do not use any chemicals in the park, so any fruit that you pick may contain living sources of protein.  Consume at your own risk.

 

 

 

 

The apples are also falling off of the trees and rotting in the grass, so the area around the apples trees is beginning to smell like apple cider or vinegar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, I found a green apple floating in the Deep Sinks.  I found one floating there just like this last year and was quite puzzled by it.  There are no apple trees anywhere near the Deep Sinks and the crab apples near the meadow and orchard are soft and yellow now.  I wondered how on earth a lone green apple ended up floating in such an odd place?  You can imagine my surprise when I approached the Deep Sinks this year and spotted yet another apple floating in the same place.  How odd.

 

 

 

The slugs are going to have a real feast with all of this ripe fruit laying around for the taking.  Isn't this banana slug a beauty?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wetland is becoming thick with spider webs.  Each species of arachnid builds a different kind of web.  How many different web-structures can you find near the boardwalk?  I watched this little spider work it's way down through the air, suspended by a single strand of silk, then crawl from leaf to leaf, attaching the leaves to one-another with shiny threads, then skitter back up the original strand in order to add another.  Web-building in action!  It's was fun to stand there and watch his trap taking shape.

 

 

 

One lonely grebe was diving in Brooklake in search of food.  It won't be long before he's joined by a variety of migrating ducks and geese.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some youngsters and I counted ten mallards on Brooklake, some dozing in the afternoon sun, while others looked for food among the pond grass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Six more were hanging out at Marlake.  This handsome gentleman is busy preening his feathers before taking a dip in the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marlake is shrinking, but I've seen it a lot worse.  The cattails are still green and pretty.  I spotted a red-tailed hawk drawing big circles in the sky above the lake.  I also found a raccoon footprint in the mud on the other side of the lake.  I could clearly see it's long, thin toes tipped with nice sharp nails.

 

 

 

 

 

Sitka mountain ash is dripping with clumps of bright reddish-orange berries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hawthorn trees are also full of berries.  It won't be long before the hawthorn trees are full of migrating birds chowing down on these berries.  In the past, I've seen a flock of twenty or thirty robins eating berries in a single tree, only to fly off and be replaced by twenty or thirty cedar waxwings eating berries in the same tree.

 

 

 

 

 

Himalayan blackberries are ripening.  I must have eaten two dozen of these big juicy berries while I was walking around the park.  It's pretty hard to walk past these beauties without picking them and popping them into your mouth.  Please notice the shape of the leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, look at the shape of these leaves.  These are a different berry, called an evergreen blackberry.  Even when they're black and look ripe, the evergreen berries are smaller, firmer, and tart, rather than sweet.  The Himalayan and evergreen berries grow in the same place, sometimes side by side, at other times intermingled.  If I were picking berries to eat, I'd stick to the Himalayan variety.

 

 

 

 

It's almost time for the nuts to fall.  The nuts are buried deep within these casings, or pods.  The shells are very hard, so once you dig them out of the pods, you need something to whack them open with so that you can get at the sweet meat inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that thistle season has passed, the northwestern thatching ants have had to move on to another plant.  Although it's not unusual to spot an ant parade at any time of the day, they usually make two massive forays a day and I was lucky enough to arrive at the right time to watch one of them.  There must have been several thousand of them parading down the edge of the walk.  Where were they going?

 

 

 

This is one place.  Just past the old cabins, in between the second and third benches, on the right-hand side of the trail, you'll find this wonderful plant with great big leaves.  If you stop and look closely, you'll see that the northwestern thatching ant cowboys have herded their aphids to plants such as this.  You never know what you're going to find in the park, so you need to keep your eyes moving.  You'd be surprised at how busy it is.  

 

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonding Over Bugs

The last time that Margery Godfrey (Friends of the Hylebos Wetland), Steve Dubiel (EarthCorps), and I had a meeting, Margery asked me how I'd feel about visiting local High School classes and talking about the park.  I told her that I really wouldn't be interested in doing that.  I live right across the street from Saghalie Middle School and often run into the kids going to and from school.  Whenever we have a chance encounter, my overall impression falls in the range of, Egads!  I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that!  My forte is Elementary-aged youngsters.  When I was young, I was interested in everything that crawled, walked, slithered, swam, or flew.  My idealistic dream was to give birth to a flock of children who would bond with me over bugs.  In reality, my flock became two and, although I took them to play in the tidal pools, camping, and hiking, I really can't remember a single moment when we actually bonded over bugs.  Children are individuals, after all, not carbon copies of their parents.  When I lead groups of elementary school youngsters, though, every now and then....the magic happens.  A young child will lay eyes on me and we're instantly on the same wave length.  In two shakes of a lamb's tail, without any effort at all, we've spent two hours together, side by side, discusssing bugs, birds, snakes, fish, plants, frogs, herons barfing salmon eggs, raccoons coming along and eating the barfed eggs, touching octopi, what a sea cucumber feels like, petting a Steller's jay, cannibalism, and digging through scat.  Those moments don't happen all of the time, but when they do, they make all of the work that I do in the park absolutely worth the effort.  Those magic moments are why I keep on doing what I'm doing.  Today was one of those magic days.

Once again, Margie Shea brought the Summer Camp kids from Snake Lake, in Tacoma, to West Hylebos Park.  Only one of the kids had ever been to West Hylebos Park before.  I met Margie, with another Snake Lake Summer Camp group last year and we had such a good time together that she asked me if I'd do it again this year.  Of course I would, said I.  I met them near the old cabins at 1 p.m.  When I arrived, they were already settled down east of the Denny Cabin and were having a picnic.  The kids had just come from the M.A.S.T. aquarium at Redondo Beach, where they'd gotten to touch an octopus, among other things, and they were eager to share their experience with me.  To be frank (Good Afternoon.  You can call me Frank.), I was a little jealous.  I've never touched an octopus and wish I'd accompanied them on their earlier trip.  The kids told me all about the crabs and the sea anemone's and fishing and the demonstrator's arms being grabbed by the octopus, and how she had to yell "No!" at it, and how it let go and zoomed away, leaving suction-cup marks on her arm.  They were so excited that I wondered whether the park would pale in comparison.  The young people had studied the environment around Snake Lake and had come to Federal Way to see how the environment at West Hylebos Wetland Park differed from that at Snake Lake.

We visited Marlake first, where they took a sample of the water and tested it's Ph using a paper test strip.  The kids learned that you always take a sample and dip the strip in the sample, rather than just dipping the strip in the lake, because the strip is treated with chemicals and we don't want to introduce chemicals into the lake.  It looked like the Ph of Marlake was about 7, so we discussed why that might be.  On the way to Marlake, we found a pile of scat and stopped to examine it, to determine what might have left it in the park.  The kids decided that it either had to be a fox or a coyote and, after I told them about the pack of coyotes that lived in the park, decided that it was coyote scat.  On the way to Brooklake, we stopped at the Deep Sinks and discussed peat:  what it was made of, how it was formed, what it was used for, and other interesting peat facts.  We could hear a nearby frog singing loudly and discussed what kind of frog that might be.  On our walk, we stopped to investigate spirea (hardhack), salmonberries, Nootka roses, Pacific water parsley, foam flower, Pacific trailing blackberries, and other plants that grew along the way.

At the Brooklake viewing platform, we talked about the life cycle of salmon, the salmon ladder, how last winter's storm changed the environment, encouraging frogs to live where they hadn't lived before, the great blue heron I'd seen eating a snake on my last visit, cedar waxings, barred owls, and, of course, the graffiti carved into every inch of exposed wood on the viewing platform and the tree shot full of bbs.

Coming back down the short end of the boardwalk loop, we discussed how the old boardwalk was built, how the new boardwalk was built, the damage done by last winter's storm, and how much easier it was to repair the storm damage to the new boardwalk than it had been to repair the old boardwalk, and stopped where a huge tree had fallen over, leaving it's rootwad sitting up in the air.  That's where they spotted two red-legged frogs sitting in the mud.  I was so glad that those frogs made an appearance, because I was beginning to fear that we wouldn't see any frogs at all.  We stopped and listened to the bird song and discussed the different kinds of birds that live in the park.

Everyone stopped at the tree-well near the owl tree to see if they could spot any frogs.  I talked about the frogs that live there and how I had spotted salamanders mating there in the spring, as well as juvenile salamanders with their big gill ruffs. There weren't any frogs or salamanders around to see today, but they did find a big slug.  On the way back to the old cabins, the youngsters got to compare the difference between evergreen blackberry, Himalayan blackberry, and the Pacific trailing blackberry that they'd seen before.  When we reached the old cabins, everyone had a chance to take a bathroom break and participate in a couple of games, then it was back aboard the bus and home to Tacoma.  You couldn't ask for a better day than we had today.  It wasn't too hot, or too cold, but about 68 degrees F. and overcast.  The sky was threatening, but it did not rain.  The youngsters had a good time, burned off a little steam, learned some interesting things, took some one-sheets home with them, and said they wanted to come back and visit the park again.  I consider this day well-seized!

 

Teri I. Lenfest

 

 

 

 

 

 

Froglets Leave Lake

Honey, I'm home!  Just got back from a week-long vacation in Oregon.  I vacationed on my sister and brother-in-law's farm, which always entails doing a little farm work, as well as playing around.

When I got home I discovered that all of the baby swallows in both of our nests had fledged while I was gone.  I thought they would, but I still miss them.  I've been keeping an eye on them for so long now that it's become part of my routine.  I took this photo of a violet-green swallow leaving the birdhouse on my sister's farm.  This is evidence of the second swallow nest in that bird house this year.  It seems to have everything a swallow looks for in a home.  They like it so much that they've developed a time-share program for it.  Look at what a tight fit that hole is.  That's how accurately these little avian jet-fighters can fly.

 

 

The little froglets are starting to leave Marlake.  This beauty was absolutely stunning, but no matter how hard I tried, or how many photos I took, I could not capture it's color.  The frog in this photo pales against reality.  The entire center of this frog's back was an amazing, gleaming, metallic copper, and the skin to either side was almost the color of a lime.  Finding this tiny froglet was like finding a living jewel sitting on top of a leaf  It took my breath away.

 

 

 

 

 

This is how tiny they are.  That's my thumb in the photo and I have very small hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wildflowers are in bloom and a variety of insects are taking advantage of the sweet nectar they produce, cross-pollinating them in the process.  There are several varieties of thistles in the park, but these big Scottish thistles are my favorite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you look at this picture and the one above, you might come to the conclusion that big bees visit big blossoms and small bees visit small blossoms, but that's not true.  I got a real kick out of watching the bees at my sister's house.  She has some plants called Angel's Fishing Rods, which have bell-shaped blooms.  The bees crawl entirely inside of these bells in order to get to the nectar.  If you examine the blossoms closely, you'll see that each one appears to have a psedo-stamen hanging outside of the bell with what looks like a single drop of nectar on it.  This must be the bait that lures the bee into the bell.

 

 

 

This was the prettiest stem of hardhack that I think I've ever seen, so I couldn't resist photographing it.  The actual color was much deeper and richer than the color in this photograph.

 

 

 

 

 

Dylan Mendenhall, from EarthCorps, found the northwestern thatching ant nest.  I found the plants that the thatching ants were using to farm their aphids this year, but hadn't been able to locate the nest.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the matter may be, the nest was located very close to the area where the work party was weeding.

 

 

 

 

 

This is only a very small number of the people who turned out for today's work party.  These ladies and gentlemen, along with their fellow co-workers, did an outstanding job of removing weeds and invasive vegetation from one of our habitat restoration sites in the park.  This is the next generation of environmentalists in the making.  As an elderly person, at the end of her career, I envy them their youth, energy, entusiasm, and the hope they bring to the world.  They make my heart sing!  

 

 

 

 

 

The salal berries are getting ripe.  Unfortunately, most of the ripe ones are too far away from the edge of the boardwalk for me to reach.  They're teasing me.  They know I want them, but I can't reach them.  And, they know that I won't leave the trail to get them, because that sets a bad example for others.  Not fair, Mother Nature!

 

 

 

 

 

Pacific trailing blackberries are also starting to ripen.  These berries ripen much earlier than the invasive Himalayan blackberries.  The Himalayans are still transforming from blossoms into hard green rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is purple loosestrife.  This is an Class C invasive that we'd like very much to get rid of.  It's currently in bloom at Brooklake.  We've been trying to get rid of it for years, but every time we think we've eradicated it, it blooms again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is fireweed.  We like fireweed.  The bees also like fireweed and they make awesome honey out of it.   You can find fireweed growing in the field between the old cabins and the pipe house.  Fireweed looks very similar to purple loosestrife, but if you look carefully, you can tell the difference.  So, what makes an invasive an invasive and why is that bad?  Native plants, as native anything, have native predators to keep it under control.  Invasive plants, as invasive anything, have no predators to keep them under control, so tend to take over, killing all of the native things in it's way.  English ivy climbs to the top of thirty-foot trees, depriving the trees of the water and nutrients they need to survive, thereby killing the trees.  Bullfrogs are many times larger and more aggressive than native frogs, so eat all of the little native frogs, wiping out entire species of frog.  Everything has it's proper place.  Purple loosestrife, English ivy, Himalayan blackberries, bullfrogs, and other invasives, do not belong in the park.

 

 

And now to the really nasty stuff.  I hate to mention it here, but Comcast only allows me to post one photograph per email, so the best way to send photos to the Park's Department and EarthCorps is through this blog.   Someone stole the little zip-lock bag of blog-from-the-bog cards that I had taped to the Information kiosk.  I have replaced it with another bag, but neither the City, nor EarthCorps, provides me with business cards, so this comes out of my own pocket.  I found some of my cards scattered willy-nilly along the trail.  One has to wonder why?  This tree is growing to the right of the Brooklake viewing platform, when facing the lake.  Someone has unloaded a wad of buckshot into the tree.  Why someone would shoot a tree is beyond me.  There's also a cigarette butt floating in the tiny bit of exposed water at the Deep Sinks.  Cigarette butts contain all kinds of nasty chemicals that will poison our wildlife.  Why would anyone be so careless?  It's beyond me.  On one end of the park, young men and women have come from all over the world and are working hard to restore the habitat in our park; while, at the other end, careless people are carving graffiti into our trees, filling trees with buckshot, and throwing their trash into the wetland without thought.  A battle is taking place within this tiny park.  Who's going to win, and what does that say about us as people?

 

Now, to the Park Department's part.  Once again, the Exit sign has gone missing where the boardwalk loop forks.  In the old days, when the signage was different, vandals would deliberately turn the Exit signs around to face the wrong direction.   When that happened, it wasn't rare for me to run into frantic visitors on the trail who had made two or more circuits of the loop and couldn't find their way out.  The new signs are much sturdier than the old signs and are footed much differently, so it takes a whole lot more effort to remove a sign now than it used to.  Still, this is the second time that I know of that the Exit sign has disappeared completely, being replaced by a handwritten sign tacked to a tree.

 

That's not all, though.  The sign on the Brooklake viewing platform is missing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sign between the Barker Cabin and the sani-can has gone missing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sign at the Brooklake viewing platform adjacent to the tree full of buckshot has gone missing.  What's with all of the missing signs?  Really, I can't imagine anyone with so little self-esteem that they feel they have the right to carve their graffiti into everything and throw their trash everywhere would have any interest what-so-ever in obtaining, and keeping, a sign that actually contains educational information.  It doesn't seem to fit in the same category as stealing a Stop sign or street sign.  It's a mystery to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, nuff said.  Don't want to leave everyone on such a sour note, although this could be considered very sour by a lot of gardeners, but I find it fascinating.  Have you ever taken the time to sit down and watch a garden slug eat a leaf?  It's really rather fascinating.  Slugs don't have teeth like we do.  They actually have something that resembles a buzzsaw more than teeth.  This little slug was so busy eating these leaves that it wasn't at all concerned by my presence, so I settled down to watch and found the whole process quite interesting.  The next time you find yourself in the right place, at the right time, and have no other place to be at the moment, I highly recommend it.

 

The wetland was very peculiar today.  After months of birdsong and mating activities, the wetland seemed absolutely silent, and the silence was a bit unsettling.  I didn't see any frogs at the Deep Sinks, nor at any other place where I could normally spot a frog.  I didn't see any snakes.  None of the birds were singing.  It was actually kind of spooky.  Just when I started wondering why everything was in hiding, and if I'd see anything at all, I turned around and spotted the biggest red-legged frog that I've ever seen in my life.  This fellow was nothing short of huge, at least as far as red-legged frogs go.  My goodness!  He, or she, as the matter may be, must be the granddaddy of them all.  What a treat!

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest

More Babies!

 

The babies in the second barn swallow nest have hatched.  They all look like they're in the midst of a bad hair day with all of their fuzz.  At this age, they really don't look very much like their parents at all.  There's nothing streamlined about them and their heads consist of virtually nothing but beaks, eyes, and fuzz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The little ones seem to have a feeding strategy that consists primarly of "make yourself big and hold your beak wide open".  When they think one of their parents is returning with a nice juicy bug to eat, some of them get so excited about it that they actually try to stand on top of their siblings in order to make themselves look bigger.  Notice the baby to the left of the ones with gaping jaws though.  He doesn't seem to be with the program.

 

 

 

 

Now, look at which baby the mother chose to feed.  It would seem that the make yourself really big and go kind of loco strategy isn't working too well for the two eager birds on the right.  Neither of them got the worm, so to speak.  Maybe next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I was headed to park in the middle of a hot afternoon, I didn't think my chances of finding anything moving were very good.  Animals are much smarter than humans when it comes to siesta time.  They choose to rest during the hottest time of the day, while most of us choose to play in the heat.  Never-the-less, I have to go to the park when the opportunity presents itself, even if my timing isn't too great.  I had hopes though, as I spotted this northern flicker right outside of the front gate of my apartment complex and it was being very active and noisy.

 

 

 

Then I photographed this cedar waxwing through the window of the bus as the bus passed Winco.  It, too, seemed to be active and noisy during the hottest part of the day.  Spotting three different kinds of birds before I even reached the park seemed like a really good sign to me.  When I arrived at the park though, it was eerily quiet.  So quiet that I wondered whether there was a hawk or eagle in the area, but I didn't spot one.

 

 

 

 

I may not have been able to spot any birds, but I didn't have any trouble spotting people.  The park was practically bursting at the seams with families investigating the boardwalk.  Someone left this wonderful piece of artwork on the clipboard at the information kiosk.  Thank you, so much!  It was thoughtful of you to leave us a gift.  I'll put it in the box with the bird nest and owl pellets that I'm saving for the future.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know whether you'll be able to see this or not.  My camera is about to go kaput again and it adamantly refused to focus on this beautiful little garter snake.  I got very frustrated by my camera's refusal to behave, as I really wanted you to see this.  This snake has blood-red stripes!  I've found snakes in the park with blue stripes, green stripes, teal stripes, white stripes, and yellow stripes, and even two with red diamonds on their sides, but this is the first time that I've spotted a snake with a dark red stripe.  I really got excited when I saw it, but then I really get excited every time I spot something new or different.

 

 

The lake is full of froglets now.  I checked the grass very well and didn't see any frogs in the grass yet, but the tapoles are so close to being full-fledged frogs that it isn't even funny and they're just as cute as they can be.  Tadpoles move in the water with a swishing back and forth motion, like a fish, but these froglets swim using all four limbs, like a person.  I've seen them on three sides of the lake now.  It won't be long before they start hopping out.

 

 

 

 

While I was looking for tadpoles, I spotted brand new eggs in the lake.  I have no idea what laid these eggs.  I know that dragonflies are laying their eggs in the lake right now.  That's what they're doing when you see them dip the ends of their abdomens into the water.  I don't know what dragonfly eggs look like though.  I'll have to do some research on the internet and see what I can find out about them.

 

 

 

 

This little banana slug was half in and half out of it's hiding place.  If I were him, I'd crawl back into the shade of my home until the sun wasn't so high in the sky.  It was much too hot for a slug to be out sunbathing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are pacific trailing blackberries.  Pacific trailing blackberries are native to this area.  The berries are very small in both size and number.  Himalayan blackberries are invasive plants that don't belong here at all, but they do produce huge berries in large numbers.  Pacific trailing blackberries produce berries that ripen long before Himalayan blackberries.  The Himalayan blackberries are currently in the blossom or hard green stage of development.

 

 

 

 

Everything with blossoms is busy with bees and wasps right now.  There are a lot of different varieties of both collecting nectar from the blooms.  Some of the bees are huge and fat, while others are petite and delicate.  It's fun to just walk around and try to see how many different kinds of insects you can find busily collecting nectar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you do that, you'll discover that all of the thistles growing near the third bench from the old cabins are full of northwestern thatching ants tending their aphid ranches.  Northwestern thatching ants are the ones with the big red heads.  They herd aphids together and tend them like little ant cowboys.  When the aphids are big and fat and full of nectar, the ants eat them.

 

 

 

 

 

Frogs are sitting around in most of the places that still have water.  Some of the places where it was so easy to spot frogs in the spring have completely dried up now.  There are also definite signs of shrinkage at Marlake as well.  The wetland's looking a little stressed, from lack of any significant rainfall, with leaves beginning to turn brown or yellow and fall from the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of falling, this skinny tree has fallen over the boardwalk on the short side of the boardwalk loop trail, in between the bench in front of the tree-well with all of the frogs in it and the beginning of the Brooklake spur.  I'm 5' 2 1/2" tall and when I walked up to the tree, it met my face just a little above my nose, so please watch where you're going and don't run into this.  I wouldn't want anyone to black an eye.

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look At That Cute Face!

I don't know whether you know anything about geocaches or not, but there are several of them hidden at West Hylebos Park, one of which is mine.  My cache gets muggled, which is what we call it when the cache goes missing, several times a year and was just muggled again the day before yesterday, so I made a trip to the park so that I could hide another cache container.  Well, everyone knows that you can't just drop by the park and hide a cache without taking the time to scope the entire park out while you're there.  The park was a busy place today.  It was hard to find a pause in the traffic long enough to hide my cache container unobserved.

  

 

On the way out of my apartment complex I confirmed the fact that the barn swallows that had nested on the light in building three had indeed fledged.  I made the apartment complex managment promise me that they wouldn't fix this light until after the baby birds were hatched and had fledged and then I would remove the nest and give them the go-ahead signal.

 

 

 

 

 

I climbed up on a stool and detached the nest from the light using a small hand saw.  I have it in a zip-lock bag now and need to find some way to stabilize it.  I want to save it for the education center that I dream about having one day, but since it's made out of nothing but mud and feathers and I had to saw through the stabilizing mud on the bottom to remove it, it's extremely fragile.  Once I figure out how to stabilize it, it will go in the box with my owl pellets and become part of my collection for the future.

 

 

 

 

Some of the tadpoles look like this now.  They look considerably different from when they hatched, but are not yet frogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, some of the tadpoles look like this.  This tadpole has all four limbs and has almost completely absorbed it's tail.  These youngers use their arms and legs to propel themselves through the water and cling to grasses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is something that only dragonflies can do.   Having already had it's eggs fertilized, the dragonfly on the bottom is dipping it's abdomen into the lake and laying it's eggs.  The dragonfly on the top is still attached to the dragonfly on the bottom, fertilizing it's eggs.  It's complicated in the dragonfly world.  There are no male and female dragonflies, as each dragonfly is both sexes at the same time, each able to fertilize the eggs of the other, as well as lay eggs of it's own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This dragonfly is beautiful.  This is an eight-spotted skimmer, but the way the sun hits it makes areas of it's abdomen light up as if they're made of gold.  My camera doesn't seem to be able to capture the true colors of the dragonflies this year.  The ones in the photo above are a vivid turquoise blue, but my camera lens isn't able to see the blue that my eyes can see so easily.  We have dragonflies at both lakes again this year, but not in the huge numbers that we had last year and the year before that.

 

 

  There were frogs to be found in the park today, but not in great numbers.  This one was at the Deep Sinks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one was in the tree-well near the owl tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, today was a hot, sunny day, so most frogs with any sense at all were either in, or under, the mud, like this frog beneath the Brooklake bridge.  Most people probably wouldn't even notice this frog, as it was no bigger than a dime, and was exactly the same color as the mud it was hiding in.

 

 

 

 

 

Please pay attention to this photograph and mind my words.  The berry on the upper left is a salmonberry, which is delicious.  The purple flowers on the bottom left belong to poison hemlock.  They will also turn into berries, but posion hemlock berries will kill you in a flash.  Note the fact that they're growing together.  There are many berries growing in the park that you can eat.  There are other berries growing in the park that will kill you faster than the EMT's can find you.  Please don't put anything you find in the park into your mouth unless you're absolutely, positively, sure you know what it is.

 

 

After having said that, I'm a little bit hesitant to say that the salal blossoms are starting to form berries, which are beginning to ripen.  Next to wild huckleberries, I love wild salal berries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm photographing the tadpoles at Marlake, when I notice that the otters and muskrat are active.  Wanting to photograph these delightful mammals, I continue down the trail between Becca's and Dana's houses, find a spot to stand, and freeze into position, not wanting to startle the mammals.  So, I'm standing there in the grass like a statue and I see this silly garter snake headed towards me at warp speed and it dawns on me that snakes like this lock onto movement, and I'm not moving, so this poor little guy probably can't see me, because the only thing that's moving is my camera, about four feet off of the ground, and it's only moving in very tiny, slow, movements, trying to track the snake.  Meanwhile the snake is moving at light speed, directly towards me, and I'm pretty convinced that it can't see me.   I don't want to move, because then I'll startle the mammals and they'll go away, so I just stand there, watching this snake, as it slams head-first into the toe of my sneaker, bouncing off like a spring.  After slamming into the toe of my shoe, I could see the tongue of the stunned snake flicking out of it's mouth while it tried to figure out what in the heck it had just run into.  A few seconds later, the snake changed it's course, crawled around my shoe, and continued on it's way.  The whole time this was going on, I was standing there trying not to bust out laughing; because, if I do that, the gig is up and I am not going to get any mammal photos today.  Oh, gosh, sometimes Mother Nature really challenges me!

I remember when I got my last really good photo of a muskrat.  I was so proud of that photo that I made copies of it and tried to give it away to my friends and family as gifts.  They, of course, were horrified.  What on earth made me think that they would hang a photograph of a rodent on their walls?  It's not just a rodent, I said, it's a muskrat.  It's a rat, said they!  A muskrat, said I!  It's not a Norway rat, it's a muskrat!  This is the photo  I took today.  Look at that face.  Tell me that's not cute.  He's such a tiny, round, little guy, with tiny eyes, and invisible ears, and he's so darned cute that he makes me SQEEEE!  How can you not think that's cute?

 

At the same time that the muskrat was munching away at the pond grass beneath the tree on the north side of the lake, a river otter was collecting cat-tail reeds on the south side of the lake, and disappearing with them into the reeds on the north side of the lake.  The muskrat is tiny and round and doesn't have visible ears.  The entire muskrat isn't much larger than the otter's head.  The otter is long, not round, and has visible ears.  And yet, the muskrat and the otter are both collecting greens, of different sizes, and carting them into the brown, chewed-off cat-tails on the north-west side of the lake.  They must be building an apartment complex for rodents back there.

 

 

The growth in front of the viewing platform at Brooklake has gotten so tall and thick that you can barely see the lake anymore.  Summer has arrived in the great Pacific Northwest.  Get out and enjoy it while you can!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teri I. Lenfest