Rood Bridge Park

Cardinal meadowhawk.

Our homeschool group had a gathering at Rood Bridge Park.  After running around on the playground to his heart's content, Jasper headed to the smaller pond and never got any further.  They've had the pump that feeds this pond turned off, and the water looks especially murky and stagnant.  But the kids found it full of wonders.  The air was full of dancing damselflies and dragonflies, and the deep songs of bullfrogs. A clump of wapato was blooming.  Wapato roots were a staple of the Native American diet. They were harvested by ladies who waded into the water and uprooted the wapato with their toes. It must have grown in abundance once, but now it is an unusual and striking sight. Bullfrogs breed much later than other local amphibians, and they were quite noisy.  The murky water hid large bullfrog egg masses.

Bullfrog tadpole.

Bullfrog.

Wapato.

Wapato flower.

Bullfrog.

Dragonfly and damselfly larvae.

Bullfrog egg mass. Photo by Jasper.