By I picked up Carrie and Lily from daycare and we decided to take a trip to our favorite park tucked into a quiet neighborhood. This park, Huff Park, has an area of wetlands and woods that house many interesting creatures (such as the one below). After searching and searching we found that this bug is called a Crane Fly.
There is a nice boardwalk that winds through these two habitats providing up close and personal experiences with nature. When your kids are into nature as much as ours are, this is the perfect place to visit!
Our goal when visiting the park on this day was to see how many frogs we could find. Normally frogs are seen all throughout the wetland area. Not today! We only were able to spot two. We did see a big black Garder snake though! Carrie thought that was really neat.
On our way back to the car we noticed a lady pointing out something on the ground to her dog. It didn't seem to have any interest in her discovery. As we got closer she asked Carrie if she wanted to see a baby snake. Anything to do with "baby" has Carrie's interest immediately! We looked where the lady pointed and right there at her feet was a baby Brown snake. It was very small...about 5 inches or so. Below is a picture of the snake next to Michaela's hand.
Carrie was so excited at what we found. She really wanted Michaela to see the baby snake but she knew it wouldn't still be there if we went back to the park later. We decided that we would take the snake home with us so Michaela could see it and then return it the next day. With nothing but the cap to Lily's bottle we scooped it up and took it to the van. We had an empty water bottle in the van that we put the snake in to keep him from slithering around while on the ride home!
When we got home we put it in a nice temporary shelter. We had a one gallon fish tank that we put some gravel, dirt, water, and a coconut shell (for shelter) in. We put "Snakey" in and he immediately curled up on top of the coconut shell. There he stayed until Michaela got home from school.
When Carrie told her we had a snake she immediately wanted to hold it! I made sure to explain that we were just borrowing the snake from Huff Park and we were bringing it back the next morning. Everyone was fine with that and enjoyed the small creature while it was here! The next morning we took "Snakey" back home.
Very interesting!
That picture of the Crane Fly is very cool. My 6 year old son would have a field day if we lived anywhere near such insects. We live in the outback called Los Angeles... were you can find smashed roadkill of insects... and other things. And after seeing all of your pictures of the great "wildlife" you were able to see in such a lovely setting, I have one question for you...
How does your daughter maintain her beautiful nails?!