This little crawler was sitting on a park bench I wanted to use along the Missouri River, along the walking path on the Mandan side of the river. I refer to him as Spike because of that protrusion on his posterior. I imagine it’s intended as a deterrent to any bird who might think of swallowing him. Many animals have unique defenses, and they’re neat to observe. This guy and his spike are no exception.

If you’ve been putting off a walk down that trail, don’t wait much longer! The leaves are starting to turn color, and the weather’s starting to change as well. Soon it’ll be a cross country ski trail again! My wife and I took a nice 3 hour walk down this 5 mile path, pointing our cameras all over the place…in fact, we could have made the walk much longer but had an afternoon church service to get to!