Field Trip

Violet went on a field trip this past week to the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge. When I was growing up this was actually a cow pasture with lots of cows that smelled when we drove by and in the fall/winter it flooded. But now it is a Wildlife Refuge, go figure. Below you will see some of the things we saw, or tried to see. I am fairly certain that you can see a lot more wildlife if you weren't going with 40 6 year olds.

Here Violet is appearing oh so studios looking at tadpoles in a plastic tub.


This is 2 bald eagles that live at the refuge. This next little story will only be appreciated by a select few people, you will know who you are......
After we had been walking through the refuge a while the kids started getting excited because there was a big bird circling over us and they thought it was one of the eagles. Even our trail guide got a little excited, until she realized and announced "Oh, that's not an eagle, that's an osprey". I had to laugh a little, gotta love the osprey.

Our poor guide, Diana, apparently hadn't been the tour guide for kindergarteners before because it took her quite a while to realize you can only talk about habitats and fungus so long before you lose your audience. She eventually gave up on the lengthy explanations and started seeing who could find the most mushrooms, without stepping off the path. DO NOT STEP OFF THE PATH!


The refuge is a place where even ants, worms, and slugs are safe. I think I might inform all the ants attacking my kitchen that. "Attention ants! There is a place you can go where people step around you and your homes and don't trick you with powdered sugar mixed with Borax."

This is a banana slug.


Here we have a blue crane, up at the top of the pic. and that thing moving along in the water is the ever elusive nutria. I honestly thought for the longest that nutria were made up creatures, like snipes and big foot.