Playing hooky

     This is a slow time for monitoring, so we decided to take the morning off and visit Kitty Todd Nature Preserve.  Kitty Todd is a Nature Conservancy property and is in the Oak Openings region.  It's the only place I know of with Orange Fringed Orchids. 
     Orchids are finicky plants who rely on separate specific fungi at different points in their lifecycle.  This makes it impossible to transplant them.  The seeds contain no energy source and rely on fungi.  It can take years for a seed to produce a flowering plant.  

     While there we saw our first Buckeye butterfly of the season.  He was so brilliant, and slow moving, we suspect he had recently emerged from his cocoon.

We also stopped by one of the recently acquired Metroparks properties to check on a wet area where we had counted violets this spring.  We're a pretty subdued crew, but we were all quite alarmed when a turkey flushed just a few feet away.  I've never seen such a heavy bird take flight so quickly.

Perhaps we had disturbed his berry breakfast.