Exploring a New Place

We went over to New Brunswick last weekend. While we were there, we got together with Renee and her three girls for a nature walk at Mapleton Park in Moncton. My mom came along too, and she's the one who took all these pictures. The weather was a balmy 14 or 15 degrees, gorgeous for the first day of November (We often have freezing temperatures here this time of year.). I was amazed at how big this green space was. I think I could even live in the city if my house was near enough to a trail like this.

The tamaracks were in their full glory:


The highlight of our walk for me was that we saw a Pileated Woodpecker. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. They are very large, I'd say as big as a raven. This one was drumming away at a dead tree. It looked as though the tree was ripped open in spots, and I realize now that this must have been the work of the woodpecker as he drummed for carpenter ants. His drumming was much slower than the rat-a-tat-tat I've heard before from smaller woodpeckers.


For the boys, though, I think their favourite part was feeding the Mallard ducks in the pond. There were quite a few. I wonder if there will be ducklings if we go back in the spring. We might have to try to do that!

We read Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings this week again, and JJ was quite excited to recognise the ducks in the book as the same kind he had fed last week.



We enjoyed close to 2 1/2 hours outdoors on this nature walk, and I was so glad we took advantage of the warm weather, because it has not been anywhere near that warm since!

I am linking up to Nature Study Mondays at the Fisher Academy International blog.