Paddling Brown Brook in Limerick

My cousins have a place on Lake Sokokis and with a lot of motorboat activity the day we visited, we opted to take our borrowed kayaks down Brown Brook, a small river that leads off the lake.

The brook had some great nature watching and we made all sorts of interesting discoveries.

We spotted lots of water flowers, which L. wanted to paddle through to get a closer look at the purple and yellow blossoms.

We found signs of beavers with a beaver dam and den as well as random piles of branches with chew marks.

Then we found a nest with small speckled eggs in them.

My cousin Paul later confirmed these were Eastern Kingbird eggs when he paddled back to the nest a couple of days later and found the mama bird and her little hatchlings.

During our paddle we also learned that dragonflies eat butterflies. I don't think I ever knew that. The girls were startled to see for themselves that this was true.

Thanks Paul for taking these great pictures of the hungry dragonfly!

Lake Sokokis

The brook was not a swimming-type place but once we got back to my cousin's cottage at the mouth of Lake Sokokis, the girls and I did some swimming.

The kids love dock jumping. There are no pictures of me joining in (and not complaining about that!) but I have to say, I love a good dock jump as well as the next kid.