Well, it's been a while since we have tried an SOS walk. We started off with the best of intentions, but only got about 5 miles due to being attacked by incredibly vicious deer flies. I am still itching like crazy, for some reason they go for the back of my knees, really annoying. The good news is that as always we saw cool stuff out at Goodwin. If you didn't GOYB and join us, here's what you missed! Click on the pictures to enlarge, there was some really neat stuff out there this week!
Started off the walk with one of my favorite birds, the shrike. He was actually eating a lizard or something but I didn't get the camera on him in time to capture that.
I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm always fascinated by decomposition. This was a really incredible skeleton of a snake. Compare and contrast with the one a few pictures down where the ants have not yet finished their work.
One of my favorite live snakes, the ring neck. This little guy was only about 3-4 inches long and super fast.
This is a really pretty ant. Known as both the velvet or cow-killer ant, it is lovely to look at, but I've been told their bite in incredibly unpleasant. Was not going to get close enough to find out.
This is another, more recently deceased snake. Make sure you click on this one to enlarge it, you can see the ants still working on it. I was kind of amazed at the methodicalness of how they were working from top down.
This little guy was out for stroll with us. If you look closely in the dirt you can see his foot prints. Heather felt bad for him as it was VERY hot so she shared her water with him on our way back.
This is a close up, he was really pretty.
Have no idea what kind of caterpillar this was but it was cool looking.
This was a neat looking butterfly. Not sure what species, but I love that big eye, he was so tiny but that crazy eye made him look totally evil.
This was another caterpillar that I had no idea of the species.
It was a hot and buggy walk, but as always was lots of fun, good conversation, and lots of cool stuff to see. We haven't been going out into the wilderness too much lately due to weather, but we have been walking pretty much every day after work, either at the park or on the river. Make sure you watch the schedule and come out with us. You can always look at pictures here, but you'll never REALLY experience the world from a laptop!
