Sketching and Butterflies

Greetings and Salutations from Huron! It's been lovely weather here with some "for real" rain. The grass and plants are loving it. We have a new stash of Fish Ohio bracelets and a bunch of new tatoos for the kids. Not just birds this time but fish too! Including a big fish that is easily 4-5 inches long. The prairie continues to bloom and be full of Black Eye Susans. The Queen Anne's Lace is showing now and we have monarch eggs on the milkweed.

Backtracking though, let me tell you about Hoffman Forest Reserve and the Second Saturday sketch class. Hoffman Reserve is a very quiet place as it seems that not many people know about it. It has successional forest on it and there's also a great meadow trail that I got to see. I didn't go too far along it though, I didn't want to get lost. I'm planning on going back as soon as I can.

The Second Saturday sketch class is a group who goes out to varios places like Hoffman Reserve and the OWC barrier beach and spend time drawing. At the end of the classes (you must pre-register because it's very popular) there is going to be an art show of everyone's best work. Saturday, we went to where part of Old Woman Creek travels through Hoffman Reserve (pdf) and the class parked themselves in lawn chairs around the creek and sketched away. (If you ever come to this, bring your own supplies as there's limited number of general supplies for the class.) I, in the mean time, reverted to little-kid-mode and explored.

Besides all the awsome plants I saw a lot of great creatures including many adorable toads which I can only assume were American Toads. Here's a great closeup.



There were also quite a few Damsel Flies. They were constantly flying around and posing. And speaking of posing, there was a Red Spotted Purple that was hanging around drinking up the moisture in the mud.



It posed and posed and posed. It was quite the little camera hog. The other surprise for my camera was the Silver Spotted Skipper that chose to hold still for a moment. I wandered up the trail a bit and found a Great Blue Heron hiding out.

I've done other things too this week but I'll save them for another entry and when I remember to download my next set of pictures. You'll get to see more taxidermy. Hey, we are Division of Wildlife after all.

Backing up a little further, I got to go kyacking out on the estuary again. A couple of times actually. The lotus are starting to bloom and by the time we go out again next week, it'll look spectacular. I also saw quite a bit of Swamp Milkweed. The main, noticeable difference between it and the Common Milkweed is the pink color. It's much brighter than the Common Milkweed. The Swamp Rose was also making a show.

I also attending the Wing Watch 2008 planning meeting at the Ottawa County Vistors Bureau. (Here's a map, by the way. It's a great place to stop and get info about the Lake Erie coast and Islands.) This was a crucial meeting because there were some who were burned out and a bit frustrated after this past year. However, they talked it out and everyone is rearing to go for 2008.

That's it for now. I'll be back with tidbits about the Division of Wildlife's groundtruthing training and other little jewels. While I'm gone, think og what you're missing by not coming to visit.....