Raccoon Creek (Week 1)

This spring I enrolled in the Pennsylvania Master Naturalist program. (I'm so excited!) One of the requirements for trainees is to keep a nature journal, visiting the same place once weekly. We were advised to pick somewhere within a few minutes of our homes.

Just no. Our family spent a great deal of time in nature before we moved to Pittsburgh. But everywhere you might choose to live has tradeoffs. Pittsburgh has so many, many advantages, and is especially rich in cultural offerings, and t's also a short road trip from about a dozen other large cities. My son Jasper has learning opportunities here that he never imagined. But there are no natural areas within minutes of our home, by any stretch of the imagination. Ordinarily I have no complaints about that. I can notice my crocuses popping up, and that brings me joy. Someday perhaps I will have the funds for a gorgeous yard, or a country home in lovely surroundings. Until then, I don't worry about what I can't change.  So journaling about my immediate surroundings does not strike me as an activity that would help me focus on the positive! 

Instead my son and I decided on the Wildflower Reserve at Raccoon Creek State Park. My son will probably be accompanying me each time, so it seemed appropriate for him to help me decide. Raccoon Creek a place that is truly beautiful any time of year, but famously so in spring. I'm definitely interested in observing all the little changes each week. We began on March 27.

I was tipped off that snow trillium grow here, and we hoped to see some in bloom. No luck. But they seem to bloom quickly and disappear without a trace, so I may have just picked the wrong day, or the wrong part of the park. 

My first butterfly of the year! I believe this is an Eastern comma. This time of year, there are lighter colored ones like this  that hatched last year and overwintered as an adult. The fact that there are few flowers blooming wouldn't concern it, because it mainly drinks tree sap. Soon its eggs will hatch and grow into darker colored butterflies, which will in turn lay the eggs of  the next generation to overwinter.

Wild rose.

Black walnuts. Perhaps a discerning squirrel found these already rotten?

Spring beauty. 

This tree, right by the creek, had been heavily gnawed upon by a beaver. 

Fresh tooth marks were clearly visible.

Skunk cabbage. Always one of springtime's very first blooms.