Day 5.118: Schodack Island: insectastic!

On Saturday, before the party, we had a short visit to Schodack Island State Park.   It was a beautiful day - which may have influenced us - but this is a pretty special little place nestled under the road and rail bridges where the Berkshire Spur of the Thruway crosses the Hudson.  There was a 'love your park' event going on there, but they had advertised it as adults-only, so we paid our entry fee and enjoyed the trails.

The place is very green right now:

And there are many insects around:

Pictured: duskywing butterfly, a caterpillar tent, a honey-bee, a red admiral, a red velvet mite (not an insect!), a silver-spot skipper, a wasp (building a nest inside the weatherproof power socket enclosure) and two crescent butterflies.  Many of these things we saw in large numbers.  The mite was a one-off though.  It looked like a bit of lint from a red sweater on the path - except that it was crawling!

There were some plants displaying their non-green sides too:

Pictured: the thing we mistook for poison ivy (until we saw the flowers) and some actual poison ivy (I think), also some extraordinary fungi as well as a lot of pretty wildflowers.

We had a picnic and the kids played on the playground once we returned from our walk.  The place was buzzing with people both those planting and litter-picking and generally loving their park and those launching boats.