Nature Reserve Adventure

On Gary's day off last week, we went to a nature reserve a little bit outside of town that borders a local lake. We had a great time and saw lots of wildlife, which of course we loved. Gary half teased that there were alligators in the lake, which I did not believe, until we pulled up to a sign on the shore that warned of alligator sightings. Point for Gary. But I saved him from a water moccasin, so point for me. Miles had a great time, too, and got his first taste of dirt.

We started our adventure on a long bridge that stretched over the marsh. We spotted tons of dragonflies, wasps, and giant spiders.

This spider wasn't giant, but was so cute!

Gary went to take a picture of me and Miles on the bridge, and I noticed a snake slithering very close to Gary's feet. He stepped away and we investigated (from a distance). Our limited knowledge of snakeology told us that this snake may very well be poisonous, due to it's semi-triangular shaped head. Notice the scary cobra-like wings behind the head. When we got home, we investigated our little snake online and decided it was a water mocassin.




Funny thing about that snake encounter was that Gary was thinking to himself as he was going to take our picture, oh this is just the stereotypical sitcom situation for something bad to happen to me. Like the dad is backing up to get a picture of the family and he falls off the cliff. I guess you don't see that in many sitcoms, but you get the point. Luckily his premonition didn't come true.

We saw a few young deer on our way to the marsh and then saw many more as we drove around the reserve. Like our little Bambi friend above. So cute!

There were two rescued owls in cages near the nature center. Miles couldn't get enough of them! He was cooing and reaching for them for at least fifteen minutes. He loved those owls. We need to get Miles to the Zoo, it just needs to get about ten degrees cooler.


Our final wildlife sighting of the trip was two armadillos! That was pretty cool. Apparently armadillos make great roadkill because they can jump to about fender height when they get scared. I would be pretty scared if I saw an armadillo jump that high.

Gary also got this sweet macro shot.

All in all, a great day. If only Gary got more than one day off a week!