There are so many reasons to love the Spring Creek Nature Center. Inside the center, displays dazzle young children with live and preserved specimens, coloring areas, quizzes, fun worksheets and nature journals.
Outside, there is the forest, which is practically enchanted; filled with lichens, mosses, big trees and little trees. Mud sucked at our shoes at some parts of the trail, while monarch butterflies fed at flowers at other parts. Birds trill and flit from branch to branch. Could have spent hours identifying species but only had a few minutes in between geocaching, hanging out with friends, having a picnic lunch, and learning in the center. Belted kingfisher was the new species of the day (#75 for the year). Eastern bluebird flitted from a feeder as we walked up. A ladder-backed woodpecker showed us his hidey-hole. 
The best part of the day we could have spent hours on, but had other commitments – Merriwether, a research chemist who spends his weekends exploring Houston’s edible plants, was teaching a (free!) class today on foraging edibles. We were able to stay for about an hour but could have listened all day. There were just too many things pulling at us – our friends who were going to meet us at the playground, the other friends we have promised to drop a kid off after, a child’s hunger for his sandwich, and a soccer game in the afternoon that all needed to be fit in there somewhere.
This was my third visit here this year, and still so much more I feel I want to see. Every second Saturday, there is a bird walk from 7:30-9. There will be another foraging class in the fall. And, there are always more caches to find and more birds to see.
Well apparently J had changed the settings on my camera phone for night photos the other night and I had no idea. I thought it was just some weird trick of light. Its changed back now.
Why do your pictures have an orange tint to them?