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| Turtle egg shells. They are more leathery than bird eggshells. |
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| Great Blue Heron. |
James Davis, author and Metro naturalist, leads free Painted Turtle Walks every spring and early summer at
Smith and Bybee Lakes. The next one is coming up on
July 2 (preregistration is required). Every day if the sun comes out, you can count on seeing many beautiful painted turtles there basking in the sunshine. Mr. Davis has a wealth of information about them, as well as just about everything nature related in the Pacific Northwest. He brought along shells, eggs, and scutes (the keratin plates that cover a turtle's shell) for everyone to see up close. One of the adults caught a garter snake, which Jasper especially was excited to see.
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| Painted turtles. The largest one in the middle is a red slider. |
Down at the canoe launch, we brought a fish net just to see what we could find in the water. Jasper quickly discovered some gigantic tadpoles- bullfrogs! They are about 6 inches long and already their bodies are much bigger than any of the native frogs. Bullfrogs are an invasive brought here as game (frog legs, anyone?) and quickly made themselves a nuisance, since they will eat just about anything smaller than they are and have some pretty sharp teeth. They love to prey on baby turtles! Mr. Davis confirmed their identity for us and agreed that if we took them home, it would be good riddance. Jasper is finding them fascinating to watch.
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| Giant bullfrog tadpole! |
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| A Brown Creeper bird is creeping up this tree. |
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| Jasper found these newly hatched spider babies. |
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| Wild roses- the first roses I've seen blooming this year! |
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| Saying hello to the garter snake. |
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| Blue Lupines. |
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