I had been to this preserve once before, but not when the daisies were in bloom. This year there were a few extra vacation days that weren't going to be used for normal social events so we decided to spend time together. Lakeside Daisy Preserve seemed a great idea.
The daisies were clearly in bloom from outside the preserve. Once we were in the preserve, we also started to see birds with a couple of quick yellow warbler sightings.
A large nest in the distance raised our hopes we might spot a nesting pair of osprey. Unfortunately, the nest was empty.
Despite the bird distractions, we were here for the daisies...
They were everywhere in small clusters and standing alone.
The old quarry where the preserve sits is the only naturally occurring site for the plant in the US. The quarry is a rocky terrain with little soil and a much different look than the fertile farms of the area.
We walked around the preserve and were headed back toward parking when Ali spotted the first Oriole.
We left the preserve and heading to an old haunt of mine East Branch State Park. We walked a few wet trails.
I try to avoid earthcaches. The topics are often weak and information can be wrong. An earthcache at the state park took us to some nice glacial grooves we hadn't seen before/
We were also treat to more immature orioles near the earth cache site.
We moved onto a county park where the theme of submerged walking paths carried on. The cache under the pedestrian boardwalk would need to wait for another visit.
We also spotted more yellow warblers.
We had a bonus with our first spotting of a female tennessee warbler in a tree snacking on insects on the way back to parking.
Our last cache in the area was near a rock wall by the state boat launch on the south shore of Marblehead. We enjoyed plentiful columbine and herb robert in bloom while finding the cache.
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