We took a hike to this small cave while camping.  Even though we had planned on taking this hike to a cave, we of course, forgot to bring any flashlights.  The kids wanted to check out the cave anyway, so I decided to use my cameras display screen for a bit of light.  We had to crawl to fit into the cave, and about halfway in, I turned the light up to the ceiling.  Much to our surprise, there were about six little brown bats hanging out about 6″ from our heads.  The kids are great troopers and found it very cool, and not scary at all.  My wife on the other hand, who wasn’t even in the cave, freaked out completely.  I’m glad my kids take after me and not her on that one!

Here’s a little velvet mite that was really fun to find.  They are so small, about 1/8th of an inch, and covered with little red hairs giving them that velvet look.  My three kids were the ones who came upon this one and instantly knew what it was (thanks to all the kids’ bug books we have in the house!).  I think they could have sat there all day just watching the little critter crawl all around the leaf litter and moss.

While on our Mississippi Palisades camping trip, we found our first Illinois orchid.  We have seen orchids before, but they have eluded us in Illinois.  I was so excited about finding it, that I went back on that hike just to take more pictures of it.  Then of course, the day we are leaving, I walked over to the woods across from our campsite and there was a huge patch of this very flower.  I think the Orchid species likes to play tricks and games with me.

On our trip to Mississippi Palisades State Park we found a few Purple Trillium plants amongst thousands of Large-flowered Trillium.  The dark maroon colored flower really stuck out.  This flower is mainly found in the eastern US, but there are a few small spots it can be found in northern Illinois.

Shooting star is very abundant at Starved Rock State Park.  You can get to a large patch of it with just a 5 minute hike.  It can be found there in the woods, by the shore and in a wet prairie.  Since I can’t collect seed from them in Starved Rock, I was excited to find a patch outside of the park.  I look forward to being able to finally collecting some seed from it.