On Sunday, since it was such a beautiful and sunny day out, we decided to take Ben and go for an adventure at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve which is about 15 minutes from our apartment. And what an adventure it was! We hadn't gotten more than 5 minutes down the trail when we ran into this lovely little turtle. Looks like she might have been digging a whole to lay her eggs into.
Little Bear wanted so badly to go touch the little turtle but Daddy said "probably not a good idea".
As we continued on down the trail, I was in awe of all of the beautiful wild roses that were in bloom. I love wild roses - they are so delicate and simplistic.
Then, not another 5 minutes further down the trail from when we say the little turtle, we ran into this attentive doe standing alongside the trail just looking at us. As we got closer, she jumped off into the bushes a little ways, but didn't go too far away.
As we walked up the trail, we saw the same doe off in the woods a bit and right before us, not 20 feet off of the trail, was a red tailed hawk pecking around in the weeds!
I had never seen a red tailed hawk quite so closely before and they are quite the impressive birds. After about 5 minutes or so, the hawk must have decided it was time to take off and off he flew! It was quite an amazing site to watch such a large bird take flight.
A little further along, Tim saw a Gardner snake, but alas, he escaped the gaze of my camera.
Little Bear seemed to be having a great time playing in the weeds - I think he had just thrown something of our into the tall weeds at this point. "Yay, Ben!"
The trail that we were walking along took us along a large pond and on the trail were a gaggle (is that right?) of Canadian geese with some of their goslings. In general, I'm not a fan of Canadian Geese (Little Bear mutually dislikes them after they hissed at him on several different incidents), but who doesn't love to see little fluffy geese?
And who can't admit that there is an inherent beauty in a goose
swimming on a still and reflective pond?
Oh look! Another turtle! He has munching on some grass near the pond, just minding his own business. Happy turtle!
As we were coming to the end of our hike, the trail brought us back to the first pond we walked past and off to the side of the trail right next to the water's edge, we spotted this empty nest of turtle eggs! Oh, I would have loved to see some little baby turtles, but this is a nice reminder of the beauty of the circle of life.
Last nature picture of the day was of the beautiful pink water lilies just coming into blossom.
As we got near the parking lot where our car was parked, Little Bear got so sad to be leaving all the fun critters, sticks, stones and mud puddles behind.
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