Swamp Fox

What I love about traveling with Daniel is that we go to so many places I would NEVER visit on my own.  Like this swamp in Riparius NY.  A place where if you step into the mud you could disappear -- literally.

Gamely, and slathered with DEET,  I trudged around searching for pretty little things.  I stepped from fallen log to sedge hummock to make sure I did not go into the mud.

I saw some wild iris (too common, we had it already), lots of cattail (not in bloom) and grasses and sedges by the score.

We did find native forget-me-not (Myosotis laxa).  What we usually see is the invasive European species which is more of a straggling vine and has larger flowers (>5mm diam), while our native is an upright herb with tiny flowers (<5mm diam).  Here is our wild native version:

At the edge of the swamp, in the woods, was this dear little oxalis (Oxalis acetosella).  Lots of them glowing in the shade.

As we left the swamp and walked back to the truck, we admired butterflies dancing in the air and settling on the wildflowers that blanketed the power line right of way that was adjacent to the swamp.  That's a monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) sipping nectar from a European clover (Trifolium pratense).