Jul. 27, 2008

Nature Walk ~ MacDonald Wood Nature Park

By sheer luck we found out about these absolutely fantastic nature walks that were happening close to where we live and were able to sign up for the summer round of adventures to local trails and beaches :) Our first excursion took us to the MacDonald Wood Nature Park where we met up with a group of moms, some dads and a whole crew of children from babies in slings to school age children. Each child also received a super cute nature notebook that was stamped with 5 items that they had to locate along the walk and at the end of the afternoon they would get their books punched showing completion :)


Off we went with the first leg of our trip starting out along a winding wooded trail. Of course I didn't want to miss out on any possibility of nature journaling while we explored, so when K spotted this really neat fungus we were prepared with journal pages, colored pencils, sharpeners and erasers. *grin* Thank goodness that stuff is light and doesn't take up much space in backpacks! LOL.


Hooray the first find on our list, a Salmonberry ~ Rubus spectabilis.


As we neared the end of the trail leading to the beach we came upon a wooden boardwalk stretching along the top of the beach equipped with benches. Dh was quite happy with this find as he plunked himself down to enjoy the shady breeze as we continued on to explore the tide pools :)


It was great to see the kids running around excitedly as they explored the shallow pools of water observing crabs, poking at barnacles, inspecting pieces of clam shells and more.


And then there is my little water bug! He just can't resist getting wet and ran in with his socks and sneakers on while I watched from the edge of the water. I was completely prepared to have to go wading in after him foregoing dry feet in the process but luckily we were able to persuade him to come back to shore. *grin*


As we explored some more we couldn't help but be drawn to the huge patches of bright green seaweed, but it wasn't like the regular seaweed you normally see. This was like fine hair all matted together, very spongy and acted very similar to a sponge in the way that as you lifted your foot off of it the water had been squeezed out from that spot and the individual hairs became very distinct.

I did some searching in our Pacific Reef & Shore guide book and discovered that I think it is actually Sea Hair (Tubeweed) ~ Enteromorpha spp. which is actually a genus of green algae!


Where the sea hair had been out of the water longer and had had a chance to dry you could pick it up in giant sheets. It reminded me of homemade paper with it's rough texture and it was super light and thin. You had to be careful with it though, it fell apart very easily :)


As we neared the end of our walk there was time to sit, rehydrate after all of the hot sun exposure, enjoy a snack....


and to check out some of the cool beach finds that had been found :)


With one last look we were off through the trees again in anticipation of next weeks walk :)