Another Saturday Morning At Green Valley

Today was the third Saturday in a row for HD and me to walk together at Green Valley. It is beginning to feel like a regularly scheduled date. There was only one section of the paved trails we hadn't yet walked, so I stopped at the boat ramp parking lot....

....the only car among all those pickups. Bud noticed that the trucks were all Chevy's (including one GMC) except for that lone white Dodge Ram. I noticed the license plates - they were all from Lee County which is in the very Southeast corner of Iowa. Why would they all come to SW Iowa to fish? A fishing contest of some sort? But there weren't any other vehicles from any other parts of Iowa. A mystery.

It was a cloudy, rainy looking morning. It didn't look like we were going to see too much of interest at which to point the cameras.

Spoke to soon - there around the first corner, standing out in the lake several feet from shore, was a Big Blue Heron.

There were still a couple Monarch butterflies about, but most of the flowers are done for the year.

I didn't count how many of these we saw on the path, but there were quite a few. Do you call them daddy longlegs or granddaddy longlegs? I think we always called them granddaddy longlegs and wrongly thought they were spiders. They are opiliones, commonly called harvestmen because harvest season is the time of year they're most oftenly seen. Well, now I know why I saw so many today.

There was another heron where we were about to turn around and start back to the car. It flew across the lake and landed among the rocks. I had to zoom in to see it. I think this photo looks like a watercolor painting.

And this one, too. It's another shot of that first heron we saw.

I was so excited when I saw these tiny, bright orange berries. I haven't seen Bittersweet growing since I saw it on the fence at Rose Hill Church/Cemetery North of Clarinda several years ago. Before that, I used to find it along the Old Quincy Road and on the fence at Oakland (Quincy) Cemetery.

Autumn arrives in a couple days. Our Saturday morning walks at Green Valley may be limited to only a few more. I look forward to them.