Cherry Hill Gate

First, some background. As I mentioned in my last post, I have some children who have been squeamish around nature. The girls are still timid in some cases and easily bored, but we're working on that. We became members of the Royal Botanical Gardens here in town. They have MANY trail heads and we're trying to spend the summer taking advantage of them. We started in April on a trail called "Cherry Hill Gate". This is an AMAZING trail! Not only is there a plethora of birds to see, but there is a pond area as well. We've seen frogs mating, ducks and geese with their babies, muskrats, chipmunks, squirrels and many other creatures. Not only is it amazing because of these things, but the chickadees and chipmunks as well as the occasional squirrel and nuthatch will eat sunflower seeds right from your hands! These are ALL pictures taken at Cherry Hill Gate, not however on the same trip. We've been several times. Sometimes alone, other times with family or other homeschoolers.

A muskrat.

Blue Jay

Sam luring a chipmunk in with sunflower seeds.

Sam feeding a squirrel.

Sam petting the squirrel he's feeding.

Caleigh feeding a chipmunk. This is a feat. She has just recently been willing to be brave enough to try.

Sam feeding a chipmunk.

Cardinal

Frog, not sure what kind.

Blue Heron

Geese with goslings.

Swan

Turtle found in the woods by the child of another homeschooler. Not sure the type of turtle though.

Mike and Eva.

Chickadee eating out of Mike's hand. He LOVES to feed the birds!

Black Crowned Night Heron

Blue Heron.

Woodpecker.

Sam feeding a chipmunk.

Eva feeding a chipmunk.

Mallard on it's nest.

Geese with a total of 9 goslings. You can only see 8 of them in the photo though.

More mallards.

Green Heron. This took us a while to figure out.

Swan. Caleigh was being brave and trying to get a closer look.

Garter snake.

Raccoon out during the day at right by the gate.

We really enjoy our outings into the forest. You never know what you're going to see. When some of these photos were taken the pond was nice and deep. After all the heat we've been having this summer, the water in the pond is sadly almost gone. Last night we had some thunderstorms though, they flooded a nearby city. I'd like to go down and see if all that rain has helped the pond's water level at all.