Goodwin State Forest, Hampton

I spent several days in the Hampton/Chaplin area (northeast part of the state) attending the Coverts Project for forest stewardship (more about that later). After the program ended I did a bit of exploration in the state forest that had been our outdoor classroom for the last few days.

There is a large pond near the parking area mostly covered with lily pads. I was told that a few years back they pulled 36 beaver out of that pond. That's a lot of beaver!

I started out by following a trail along the edge of the water. Here's a great big scary fishing spider, laying an ambush along the shoreline.

Later I thought I saw a piece of plastic garbage peeking out from under a rock in a stone wall. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be some kind of mushroom growing into the rock above. I flipped through my mushroom book when I got home, but was not the wiser for it. I'm guessing it's some kind of common mushroom that became a mutant when it found itself trapped under the rock.

As the sun sank and I headed back for my car, I passed this Great Blue Heron out in the middle of the lily pads. Not sure what he's standing on...maybe one of those beavers ;-).