September 17th Nature Walk

We decided that today's report had to be more pictures than words. We took a nature hike this morning and early afternoon. We walked about 8 miles up the Tahquamenon River. It is the opening of bear season so we asked the first hunter we saw if he was out for bear. No, he was hunting for partridges. We saw a lot of evidence that answers the question about what a bear does in the woods but saw no bears. When we walked back into camp our neighbor told us that we missed all of the excitement - a bull moose visited the camp while we were gone. He strolled right down the roadway in front of all the campers and into the river! I was going to title this post - Strolling through the saprophytes.
We saw so many beautiful mushrooms. This one was shaped like a trumpet.

Many of them had delicate designs.

Some of them grew by the dozens on rotting birch trees.

Some were quite delicate and clean looking.

This one had a rich yellow color to it.

These looked like a couple of slices of toast that had popped up out of the downed tree.

This one was a tiny parasol down among the pine needles.

The leaves have also begun to turn so the forest floor and some of the pine branches are dotted with bright fall colors. We hope to find whole forests in Autumn color when we get farther into the woods away from the relative warmth of Lake Gitche Gumee.

We only saw a few critters - ground squirrels, chipmunks, a snake and some birds. This toad stopped long enough for a picture. He was in his best Fall camouflage. We made it back to our campsite feeling pretty lucky to be able to see the north woods.