Smith and Bybee

Metro offers a spring trip at Smith and Bybee Wetlands, on Smith Lake in bimaran canoes.  Bimarans are very stable because they are two canoes attached to each other.  We wouldn't miss this chance to see this lovely spot from a new perspective.  This year, the trip was lead by John Sheehan, Metro's Manager of Conservation Education, who brought his delightful young sons along as well.  Afterwards we explored the trails with our eyes peeled for wonders.  

There's a beaver lodge hidden in that tangled mess.

Cormorants.

The cormorants up close.

An osprey bringing a fish to its young in their nest.

The osprey is further away but the fish is much clearer.  It's big!

The cormorants paid a lot of attention to that  osprey.

The osprey's nest.

A juvenile bald eagle.

Jasper and his friends used aquarium nets to capture dragonfly larvae and little snails.  They found them fascinating.

Jasper watching the dragonfly larvae caper about.

We watched this great blue heron gracefully land.

Ducklings dutifully following their mother.

A lone painted turtle basking on a log. 

This fence was put up to defend this young tree from beavers.
But the water level rose up above the fence, so the beaver just swam over to it!

More evidence of beaver mischief.

A particularly lovely banana slug.

One of Jasper's friends caught this garter snake.  It was his first snake capture!  Hooray!

Wild roses.

A Pacific chorus frog.

Another treasure- robin's egg shell.

Pacific sideband snail.

More wild roses.