Wednesday, August 27--Our mini retreat at Pere Marquette state park continued until noon on this day. The highlight of the morning was a bird walk through the deserted tent campground behind the cabins. We saw or heard phoebes, blue jays, a woodpecker, cardinals, wrens, robins, doves, tufted titmice, and gold finches to name a few. At this season, nature begins to mature the fruits that will sustain a lot of the bird life through the fall and winter. Wild grape vines (above) festoon all kinds of forest trees. Norm broke a bluish one open and found little more than skin, two seeds, and a drop of very sour juice. No flesh to speak of.
Robins were eagerly nibbling on these white berries. I thought they might be immature dogwood berries (which are red in winter, if they last that long) but I'm not sure.
Gin anyone? These juniper berries looked plump and almost glowed in the shade on the north side of the camping slope. Cedar waxwings are fond of these berries when they migrate through later in the year.
Osage orange, according to the books, doesn't appeal as food to any kind of wildlife. The huge "hedge apples" will fall, split open and leave a mess, but the seed of the plant will be dispersed anyway. The wood of this small tree was prized for bow making by some Native Americans. Hence its French name, Bois d'Arc, or as my daddy used to say in Oklahoma dialect, Bo-Dark.
We enjoyed a cool hour's stroll in the woods, came back to the Lodge for a hearty breakfast and checked out. Our next stop was the Lewis and Clark Interpretive site at Hartford, which conveniently was on our road home.
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