October 4, 2022

For my second nature walk, I took a trip to the Houghton Garden which I found to be a great area. It is a secluded and protected area that was larger than I expected and home to beautiful and diverse nature. I was able to explore nearly all of the area, but I hope to go there again to focus on the little pond/body of water in the garden. I could see movement (water bugs, frogs, etc) and I would like to see if I can get a good picture of some of them. The weather was nice as well. I went during the early afternoon, so the sun was out, but the cool morning weather lingered. The Houghton Garden was a pleasant surprise to me, and I will definitely be going there again, and highly recommend it since it is so close and has a lot of wildlife to observe. The theme of the week for this nature walk was fungi, so most of my observations are a part of the fungi kingdom. There were a lot of mushrooms in the area which I was able to observe, as well as two separate species of lichen; considered to be a "symbolic partnership" between fungus and algae (https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/beauty/lichens/about.shtml). Although the majority of my observations of fungi, I was able to capture some other species such as the tree squirrel, a plant with fruit on it (according to iNaturalist it was Genus Malus), white ball-like fungi (Aborted entoloma), and something I and iNaturalist could not classify (looked like it could have been eggs of some sort or larvae). It was very cool to see such a diversity of fungi and plant life in Houghton Garden, and it was a very peaceful experience to explore the area.

Posted on October 5, 2022 07:52 PM by llarkin