Stopping to Smell the Flowers

Today we visited Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. What a place!

Liz and her friend Karen try to go at least once a year to hike the trails, birdwatch, and look for wildflowers. Today there wasn't much in the way of birdwatching - mostly robins, red-winged blackbirds, and turkey vultures. Oh, yeah, and GEESE! Canada geese were just everywhere. We got pretty close to a few and it got a little scary. They are really big birds! We're sure that two stripey socks from Kansas would be no match for them.

Karen was disappointed at the lack of decent birdwatching - Liz was o.k. with it though. She was more interested in looking for spring wildflowers and just getting out in the trees to hike. As a group we hiked three different trails today. We really put in some miles! We think we went farther today than when we went snowshoeing!

After our first trail we went to a scenic overlook and had our first ever picnic. It's the closest we've ever been to food. Left seems to be a bit of a junky and wanted the doritos mix, while Right (who has become concerned over Liz's increasing weight - ahem) went for the carrots and broccoli. As we enjoyed the fresh breezes and listened to Liz and Karen crunching down their lunches, Karen spotted the Bald Eagle nest far across the pools at the overlook. Even though it was very far away, Liz and Karen could see an eagle sitting on the nest when they used their binoculars. We couldn't see for ourselves, but we've decided to take their word for it.

We spotted many spring wildflowers in our travels...

hepatica

trillium (not open yet, darn!)

and the biggest field of bloodroot Liz has ever seen! (This is only a very small portion!)

We also saw six snakes today! They were all garter snakes, and quite small. And we heard many birds and frogs - toads, green frog, gray tree frog, and spring peepers. We did have one exciting bird sighting. We saw the biggest woodpecker in the area - the pileated woodpecker.

We didn't actually smell any flowers today. Most of the flowers blooming now are of the non-stinky variety. Still, we did smell many other things like the soft scent of pine while we hiked through a stand of evergreens, the mild stink from the swampy wetlands, and the fresh green smell that kept reminding us of just how wonderful spring can be.