Like so many other park trails with Lakeview in the name, it does not have much of a lake view. You can see the lake at the trail head, but you quickly move away from it. Oddly, the Mountain bike trail that spurs off of the lake view trail has more lake views, so we walked on those. Fortunately, there were no mountain bikes because the trail was not very wide.

At the trail head, we took a picture of the entire yellow flower. You can see that it has leaves on opposite sides of the stalk that alternate at 90 degree angles. That is a defining characteristic for identifying the plant. Sadly, it was not enough to get a 100% certain identification.

Not far down the trail, the bay that the trail follows narrows, and Kate saw a Great Blue Heron in a tree.

The trail was a little disappointing because there was not really much on it. There was limited lake views, even on the mountain bike trail. We missed a picture of a dark colored butterfly with bright blue on it. It might have been a Red-spotted Purple or an Eastern Swallowtail.

After a mile or so, we cut away from short and followed the Lakeview Nature Trail (with no lake views) back toward the trail head. In performing his duty as a spider-sweeper, John found quite a few spiders. This is a Spined Micrathena (Micrathena Gracilis) or Castleback Orb Weaver. They are harmless to humans, but they grow an odd structure with five pairs of points on their back to deter birds from eating them. The photo on the left is normal, and the right is focus stacked.

These are all focus stacked, zoomed as close as possible, and cropped. This is just using the 55-250mm, which only magnifies to about 1:0.3. The spider was about 1 cm long. With the 18-55mm lens with extenders, it would be half the frame, but it would have run away. The top left photo has had the contrast reduced, so you can better see the details of the spider.

This one is likely an Orchard Spider (Leucauge Venusta). They build webs in low shrubs and tall grass. The upper two are normal and lower two are focus stacked photos.

This one almost got stuck to John’s face. John stopped just in time, and the spider snapped its legs out to the side, like it was going to grab John’s face. It looks like it is wrapping its lunch up. This appears to be an Arrowhead Orbweaver (Verrucosa Arenata). They are known for facing up in the web instead of down, like most spiders. They often recycle their web in the morning, by eating it.

There really was not much more on the trail, other than a bush with tiny white 2-3mm flowers and odd bur like … fruits? These are all focus stacked because the flower was so small that tiny movements put it out of focus.

After this, we walked down to the spillway, and we found John’s hypothesis was probably right. The spillway back flow looked like a fish abattoir. It has started to smell like it too.

The turtles, birds, and living fish are feasting on the grizzly remains. Here you can see a Great Blue Heron trying to choke down a huge chunk of dead fish. This makes them look a lot less pretty.

All while some of the other herons watch. A lot of them fly off down the riveras we walk up.

And the fish gasp for breathe.

At this point, we were miserable hot and sweaty (and tired of dead fish smell), so we headed back home.