Yesterday we managed an excursion to the Indiana Dunes, where we explored the Calumet Trail and Cowles Bog. It was our first visit, so it was mainly a reconnoitering, but we nonetheless saw some amazing things. . . .
Fringed gentian, © 2012 Celia Her City.
We saw this amazing flower, the fringed gentian, which we learned later blooms only once every two years. . . .
We saw this nest that some bird had built at the base of a gigantic electrical tower. . . . Far off, we saw a pair of sandhill cranes, a first for me.
Finally, as we were hurrying back to our car, we saw a tiny black thing “growing” in the bog. I spent an hour at home poring over the Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms (a total gross-out book, by the way) trying to identify it before looking closely at the photograph I took and realizing that it was a small turtle. Can you see its head?
