The Manor house at Wildwood Metropark
After a really hot week working outside last week the weather cooled down dramatically. It's perfect weather to go outside and the mosquitoes aren't swarming anymore.
It's also a great time of year to photograph some late spring time flowers. So as we walked through the park I photographed every flower I could find growing wild along the trails.
A lot of these flowers I found growing in the prairie areas of the park. Over the last few years the park system has worked hard to remove invasive species and restore native flowers and grass. This involved some herbicide but was primarily accomplished with mowing and controlled burning. It was worth the effort, the season is just getting started but soon the whole prairie will blossom.
Unfortunately I don't know the names of all these flowers so please feel free to comment if you do.
That bench in the background is a great place to sit and spot deer in the evening. It's the location of my most memorable encounter where I got to meet a deer that had become habituated to humans. It's not good for the deer but it was still cool to have a wild deer come up to me.
Of all these pictures there is one that I think I know. These white flowers are probably raspberry flowers
So now once again I have to ask my readers: when was the last time you went to the park? This place is only a five minute drive from my house and look at all the stuff I found.
I often worry that we are taking nature for granted. I really hope that people think about how important the natural ecosystem is. Places like this park and others in the area are some of the last places that a lot of plants and animals have. They need our help if they are to survive. We have a bad habit of ruining what's good around us. I hope to hear from you in the comments.