Moonbeams Preserve, 25 May 2007

Six families joined us on our outing today. Unfortunately, the grass at Moonbeams was not mowed, and it was a very hot day. It was virtually impossible to allow toddlers to walk by themselves, and it was very difficult to get even our joggers moving. The fields, though, were full of wildflowers, and there were too many Eyed Brown butterflies to count. Laurel caught quite a few to show the children. We didn't see the Indigo Buntings, but we saw a pair of hawks circling the preserve, and they were calling loudly to each other. We could hear them quite clearly. As we walked toward the promising cool of the forest, we lost a couple families to the heat and tall grass (don’t worry, they just turned back to find the comfort of their cars). We gained one when we made it to the woods; the Samse’s caught up with us after we found the cool shade of the forest. At least ten degrees cooler with a clear path to the river, Moonbeams woods is a joy. They are a haven for owls, and you can regularly find owl pellets if you know where to look. The soft green of new ferns clothed entire glades. New York fern, Christmas fern, and others grew near their cousins the clubmosses. Kat pointed out two evergreen species that grow in runners across the forest floor. The upright, unbranched clubmoss was called stiff clubmoss and the branched clubmoss that look like little trees are ground cedar or ground running pine. Clubmosses are cousins to nonflowering plants that lived millions of years ago. Today they are disappearing as forests are cut down and people pull them up and sell them for use as Christmas greenery.
We made our way down to the river, past some large downed trees. It’s high banks did not afford the children a close up experience, but the sparkle on water enchanted them all the same. On the way back, we saw the remains of a predator’s dinner, feathers and bones, and wondered who’d had a robin for lunch? Though it will be difficult to be able to return to Moonbeams unless it is mowed, we enjoyed our time here nonetheless.