4 Hikes on Memorial Day Weekend

Wow! It was a great weekend for hiking this Memorial Day weekend! I have an image packaged post to share. While I had a great time hiking around the usual 3 county parks, the following photos hit the high points of each journey.

Colonial Park was filled with babies on May 28th. Canada geese (Branta canadensis) strut their stuff with their goslings.

A male and female Barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) fed 3 or 4 nestlings in their nest made of mud above. Baby birds are all mouth at that age!

A female Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) with her ducklings.

A (full grown) American bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana). By sneaking up behind him, I was able to confirm the dark stripes on his hind legs. However, he soon sensed my footsteps...

...and hopped off the board to vanish beneath the duckweed.

A young Painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) surfaces in the Delaware-Raritan Canal adjacent to the park. This little guy was around 4 inches long.

On Saturday morning, I went for a long hike in Sourland Mountain Preserve. It was a warm, muggy morning where you felt you were swimming rather than walking through the air.

Several creepy crawly creatures were out enjoying the weather. I think of slugs as our little slimy brothers of the wild kingdom. This is a Orange-banded Arion (Arion fasciatus) slug.

The view from the top of the hill has changed now that summer foliage has grown in.

While the sun came out intermittently as I trudged up the hill, the sky eventually hazed over and I plunged into darkness when the trail travelled under the trees.

The white squares marking the path seemed to glow like beacons as I moved through the wet leaves and damp boardwalks.

A caught a glimpse of two of these guys, Apheloria virginiensis. Evidently their only common name is simply "millipede."

A Great gray slug (Limax maximus) moves along a fallen log.

At the junction of several trails, a stone cairn awaits you. I will let you discover its location yourself within the park. It is at least 1/2 hour from the main trail head (unless you hike very fast), so look for it a ways into your hike.

I believe this a Garden Snail (Cepaea nemoralis). I had never seen one before, only found empty shells, and I was very excited by this encounter.

The clearing at marker 9 at Sourland Mountain Preserve. It was a great hike but a little more taxing than I had anticipated - I was pretty tired, damp and dirty in general by they time I made it back to my vehicle.

On Sunday, my fabulous boyfriend and I spent an hour or so at Washington Valley Park, Gilride Road trail head.

I was pleased by the abundant sunshine and the cool breeze that moved across the water as we hit some of the overlooks along the gorge.

Another bullfrog lounges in the sun.

I photographed this insect so that I could enjoy identifying it. However, it has me totally stumped - I think it is part of the order Odonata, which includes dragonflies and damselflies. But that was as far as I got. Please help me out! What is this mysterious green bug?

On Monday, I visited Colonial Park, biking down the Delaware-Raritan Canal gravel path to the park. I hung out on the same bridge over the canal and took another photo of the baby Painted Turtle above.

It was a good ride on another hot, sunny day. My family and I finished the weekend with some grilled food inside, as a thunderstorm rolled through around dinnertime. Overall, I was pleased with the many sightings of interesting creatures over the long weekend.