The Rookery

It seemed we couldn't go more than a few feet without encountering another wonder.  On Friday, naturalist John Latimer came to talk with the Herons and take a walk with us.  We headed out the green doors and showed him the fruiting magnolia tree we'd been watching.  He was amazed – and soon showed us so many more things to be amazed by — we opened the fruit to inspect it, we examined a bud that would be opening next spring, we learned about the magnolia's range (John had never seen one this far North).  We turned around and headed a few steps across the plaza – and compared the acorns of all of our different oak trees, learned about how botanists choose leaves to study, looked at the fibonaci spiral in a milkweed pod, stood in awe as two sandhill cranes flew over our heads, compared the number and types of seeds in many, many wild cucumbers, put our fingers in yellow sapsucker holes, predicted next year's acorn harvest (it takes red oak acorns two years to mature!), identified the plant we'd been calling "bubblegum weed" (knotweed), found an amazing hatch of box elder bugs including one that was molting (something John had never seen before), noted several patches of wild asparagus to watch next spring, did a magic trick with dogwood leaves, smelled a giant mushroom…

John is a walking encyclopedia of nature knowledge but what makes him a joy to learn with is his true enthusiasm for everything we were finding.  He was just as amazed as we were.  The Herons loved learning with him and are excited to continue to contribute to his radio show.  It was a special morning.