Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Michigan in October = wildflowers?

On October 22, 2012  My sister Marie and I went for a 4 1/2 hour walk at Riverside Park in Ottawa County Michigan.  While on our walk we identified 27 blooming wildflowers!  That is pretty good for October in Michigan. 
We also saw two American Bald Eagles flying around and around over the Grand River. 


This is one of the eagles over the river...

Some of the wildflowers we saw blooming...
                             Common Dandelion

                                Wild Strawberry


                           Some type of fleabane

                             Common Chicory

                           Yellow Sweet Clover

                                  Bouncing Bet

We spotted one of the eagles landing in a tree across the river.  It was very hard to see it in that tree, about in the middle of this next picture.  I found a log to steady the camera on and zoomed in on the eagle...

 
So this is the zoomed in picture, which I thought turned out pretty good, since I had a hard time finding the bird in the tree way across that river.
 
 
We also came across this fungus on a tree with Poison Ivy growing right through it. 
I added the car key to show size, and it is a fairly large key.
 

 
 
This beautiful Common Buckeye butterfly was still hanging around.
 
 
As always it turned out to be a great day,
we do have fun. 
  

10 comments:

Dave said...

what a great shot of that eagle, i would been so excited to see that. still are some nice flowers out.

Chuck Stull said...

Great photos!

New Hampshire Gardener said...

I think you might have more flowers still blooming than we do, but I hope to find out for sure this weekend. Excellent shot of the eagle-I don't see many of those.

Anonymous said...

The photo of the eagle flying over the Grand River with the soft Weeping Willow tree in the background is my favorite, and all the wildflower pictures, and the Buckeye butterfly which is so furry. Oh my! We saw 27 wildflowers blooming? It was a great day, wasn't it... Thanks for posting. M :)

stratovolcano said...

great pictures. I'm impressed with the photos and what you were able to find so late in the season! Brings me right back to west Michigan.

Plants Amaze Me said...

flowerdave, the eagles were cool, we had seen them the day before about the same place along the river. I was surprised at the number of different plants we saw blooming!
:-)

Plants Amaze Me said...

Chuck Stull, thanks. I have to admit I do like the picture of the eagle flying over the river. I have a new camera and I am still learning how to use it.
:-)

Plants Amaze Me said...

New Hampshire Gardener thanks. I would say we haven't had a good frost yet, even though we have had temps in the low 30's. Plus we had a good bit of rain.
:-)

Plants Amaze Me said...

M :-)
It was a great day. And by posting I remember the day all over again. Thanks for the adventure!
:-)

Plants Amaze Me said...

stratovolcano, thank you! Yes Michigan is a great place to live, you should give it a try again. Not much oil here though, I guess.
I have been using the Fugifilm camera Dad got me for my birthday. I have much more
to learn about it though.
Thanks for the comment and the phone call.
:-)