Today's Outing: Watkins Regional Park

I thought about titling this post "Today's Adventure" for my own nostalgic reasons. In any case, adventure it was for a lover of the outdoors. It was an overcast but rainless day that saw us hiking through Watkins Regional Park. This place seems underused to me - it's relatively small but has a lot to offer, both in terms of facilities and hiking trails (although, their trail map and blazing is suspect). Laurel and I have visited three times but never encountered many people. Prince George's County has some negative associations for a lot of area residents, but this place is a true gem. The Nature Center is filled with rescue animals including hawks, owls, and turtles. They also host non-native species - which might be confusing to youngsters. Among their various terraria are a ball python, an emperor scorpion, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and other exotics. In another part of the park they keep peafowl (yes, that's the word - 'cock' and 'hen' are sex specific, after all). Two of our three trips to this park have been wonderful; the third was unfortunately cut short by unexpected and intense rain. Today was something of a makeup trip for our previous, aborted hike.

Laurel checks out some of the park's rescue birds, located behind the nature center. These enclosures house a turkey vulture, a black vulture, a barred owl, and a pair of red-tailed hawks. Inside were several additional birds of prey native to the region.

Also behind the nature center is this frog pond, which held my attention for a solid ten minutes at least. If you've got a good eye, you'll be able to spot three frogs in this shot. I believe most, if not all, frogs in this pond are green frogs (Lithobates clamitans).

Why depart from a good theme? Also behind the nature center are several birdfeeders. I was able to grab a snapshot of this American goldfinch (Spinus tristis) but the downy woodpecker and white-breasted nuthatch on the neighboring feeder were too quick for me.

My last photo from "behind the nature center," I promise. A closer picture of the frog in question. I am basing my identification as a green frog on the presence, and relative straightness, of a dorsolateral fold.

To move on from all this nature center talk, I'll discuss the day's mushrooming. I didn't bring home anything for the table, but I did see several LBMs (little brown mushroom - I didn't just make this one up), a number of sizable Dryad's saddles, and your typical assortment of polypores. One of these I brought home to identify, but I'm not there yet.

Here are a few of those LBMs I mentioned. There were quite a few of these nestled among the moss, but they were very easy to overlook. Once Laurel pointed the first out, they seemed to rise up out of the ground and sing all around us.

Dryad's saddle is such a photogenic mushroom. Unfortunately, the taste is a bit odd to me, and once they are large enough to be showy the taste is reportedly not very good even to those who generally like it.

I had to push through vines and ford a small stream for this photo, but I think it was worth it. It was my first legitimate tromp through the woods of the year.

I don't know precisely what these polypores are, but I thought they made for a quaint photograph. This tree was just between the park and a private backyard.

There's also a secluded beaver pond on the property. While we didn't spot the craftsmen themselves, evidence of their presence was abundant. I noted the growth atop the lodge we had seen in the fall of 2009, along with a surprise (more on that below). I think the beavers may have moved on to another part of the pond. Their work was still pretty neat to observe.

The pond

The beaver lodge - complete with nesting Canada goose! That's her about bottom center. I have to believe this lodge has been abandoned by the beavers, because I don't see mother goose here as comfortable sharing with a fairly large mammal with enormous teeth.

Here's a better shot of our dedicated mother. Camera zoom did much better than our naked eyes.

I will leave you with this landscape of one of the park's big empty fields. I hope you have enjoyed your vicarious trip to Watkins Regional Park. I can't promise not to drag you there again soon.