There was plenty of activity to make me stop on a trip to Island Park

On a trip to Island Park to deliver some fishing flies, my wife and I decided to take a small hike along the beautiful Silver Lake at Harriman State Park last week.

My wife is a walker and hiker, while I am a stroller, pausing often to take pictures or study some flower, bug, animal or bird. With the temperature in the 70s, there was plenty of activity to make me stop.

The first item that made me stop was a family of trumpeter swans, a pair of adults with three cygnets. Probably mom in front with dad bringing up the rear, I recorded the five, standing on their heads, gathering salad materials of aquatic plants from the shallow water as they leisurely swam past me.

As I watched them, I noticed hundreds of dragonflies, damselflies and butterflies flying from dirt to grass to blooming flowers. Now, I am not good at identifying flowers and bugs, so if I mis-identify any, gently inform me of the correct name and you can teach me something.

The first dragonfly I was able to capture a photo of was a fiery red dragonfly as it landed on a bridge to enjoy a little dried horse road-side apple. Little Copper butterflies and American Bluet damselflies were everywhere with most of them landing and feeding on white and blue asters, sticky geraniums, fireweed and goldenrods.

We had a couple of horse-riding groups come by, but the biggest wild game was a lonely chipmunk that was spooked, ran across the trail. It parked itself on a large root from an overturned tree to watch us humans enjoy the wilds of Idaho. Finally, another chipmunk showed up and the two of them began playing a game of tag – or “catch-me-if-you-can.”

As I was strolling along, my wife doubled back to see how I was doing when we came to a marshy, dark shaded seep with beautiful purple flowers tempting us to study them.

“Those are Monkshood’s and they are poisonous,” I informed her, so she continued down the trail as I finally found the only insect that usually pollinates those plants; a bumblebee.

The Monkshood flower is made up of five “sepals” with the top sepal forming a monk’s hood shaped like the hoods that medieval monks used to wear. Bumblebees are critical to the survival of this plant because they are the only insects strong enough to separate the sepals enough to get to the pollen to pollenate the plants. The plants are dangerous to wildlife but must be consumed in large amounts to be deadly. The roots contain most of the poison.

I watched the bumblebee work feverishly to get inside the sepals to pollinate the flowers. Danger always lurks in dark, hidden areas, so I moved on.

After we turned around and headed back to the vehicle, we ran into and large patch of goldenrod that held a host of not only butterflies but other insects as well. This late blooming plant had numerous Little Copper and Fritillary butterflies seriously feeding off them. One fritillary put on a show by showing its beautiful colorful wings.

This was not a planned hike, and we did not take any water, so we cut it short, but oh, the number of beautiful things we saw and witnessed. We have now planned another hike in Harriman in the next couple of weeks.

With school starting in a month, if you are looking for some small hikes to take your children on, Harriman State Park has many of them available to enjoy. If you are getting close to 80, like I am, it is also a great place to enjoy the great outdoors of Idaho.

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