Ritter Springs Park

Another fall foliage outing we enjoyed a week or so ago….

Ritter Springs Park is north of Springfield. We took a scenic route to get there and then hiked to the lake and back. I was with my husband and daughter who were intent on hiking rather than photography….so I didn’t take many pictures.

There were lots of oaks and hickories…hackberries…sweet gum. I picked up several cones from the Norway Spruce that was near the parking lot; they will make a fourth type of pinecone in my tree educational trunk!

The water level at the lake was low but still flowing out into the stream below the dam. There were dead leaves in the shallow water beginning to decay…lots of food for the macroinvertebrates in the water.

I read on the park’s web page that there is a summer camp there. I wondered how they handled the campers when thunderstorms come though since there is only a pavilion (not a building).  Otherwise, the place has a lot to offer for a summer camp.

Zooming – November 2022

18 images in the slide show for November – less skewed toward botanical subjects than recent months. Outings to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, Springfield Conservation Nature Center and Josey Ranch Lake increased my opportunity to photograph wildlife. It was good to see winter and migrating birds…more of those in coming months (probably).

Enjoy the November slide show!

Rough Green Snake

My son-in-law saw (and photographed) a rough green snake while he was hiking at Ritter Springs State Park near Springfield, Missouri. What a wonderful color! His picture prompted me to do a search to identify it…learn more about the snake.

The highpoints of what I found: They are exploited by the pet trade – and people that want to keep them as pets (I’d rather they stay in the wild!). The snake eats insects and other small invertebrates - spends most of its time in trees, often near water. Not venomous. Their range evidently extends into the area where I live in Maryland, but I’ve never seen one. I’m going to start looking for them. It would be quite a thrill to see them in the wild.

Not long after I received the picture, there was a blog post from DFW Urban Wildlife that included some pictures of a rough green snake in Texas! It contained some other critters that are hard to spot in the wild. I am going to look more closely for them…hone my observation skill. It’s probably true that there is almost always more to see out in nature than we notice!