My Granddaughter takes after her Mom. My daughter once touched a Canebrake Rattlesnake as it was crawling off. I’m glad I wasn’t there. So my Granddaughter was out with her Dad as he was doing an annual snake count. She is happy to hold Prairie King Snake. I should add she is a better Naturalist at 4 years old than some adults. She corrected her teacher when the teacher called a frog an insect.
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Wonderful! We love snakes, too. I have even safely cohabitated with Copperheads at the base of the cliffs of the Red River Gorge on many occasions. You can’t climb there and not. Copperheads are super shy and you really just have to keep your eyes open for them.
I’m not afraid of very many animals, certainly not of this little sweetie. (Sorry, crappy iPhone pic.) I make a game of trying to paddle as quietly and unobtrusively as possible when I see wildlife. I consider it a victory when they stay where they are as I pass and observe them. Today on my SUP I saw a Great Blue Heron on the bank, so I paddled on the far side of the creek. It’s not very wide at that point, but I happily watched him watch me as I passed. I only occasionally looked down to make sure I wasn’t going to wipe out on submerged branches in the shallows. The heron stayed put, and I looked up just in time to see a hornets nest in the overhanging branches right as I was about to slam into it face first. I have never gotten on my knees as fast and as low or paddled as quickly and quietly as I did right then. My adrenaline took quite a long time to go down, and I absolutely hugged the other bank when I passed it again on the way back. I am highly allergic to bees and wasps (and lots of things) and I carry epi, but I would have died today had I kissed that nest. Yikes.
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I think I have posted to this thread both a hornets nest and huge Red wasp nest that were in branches over the water. Here in the south they can be the biggest danger in some places we paddle. You were almost a victim of “distracted” paddling. There should be laws against using a phone while paddling! 
Do be safe though that was too close. 
Fishing from a canoe on the Santa Fe River I drifted into a nest of red wasps. I was in the water as quickly as if I had capsized. Didn’t tip the canoe over, or drop the rod in the water. It was hot so I wasn’t wearing a PFD. I was thankful because I stayed under water and swam away. I let the canoe drift and picked it up down stream. I was stung several times in a matter of about a second. That was 40 years ago. I have watched out for them ever since.
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Thanks
Ha! I was well upstream from the hornets nest when I saw Bambi and snapped her pic. I had stopped to drink water and try to calm down. But, you are right, I am often a distracted paddler, staring at birds and turtles and fish. Today I didn’t take my eyes off overhanging trees for the rest of the paddle! It was a bit terrifying. I confess I do not use my pfd on this creek. I am a very strong swimmer (swam competitively and lifeguarded for years) and it’s narrow with no discernible current. My instinct would have been to dive into the water and swim as far and as fast as possible, dragging my SUP by the leash. I read a bit and learned that hornets will often wait for victims to surface for air and attack again. Honestly I’d rather deal with brown bears! I can’t decide if this makes a good case for wearing a pfd no matter what, because at least someone could have found my floating body instead of found my floating SUP and me under the water attached at the knee. OTOH, getting away from them would have been easier without the pfd. So I’m torn. I’m sure I will be noticing a lot more things about trees going forward. shudder
I have run afoul of white faced hornets and yellow jackets on separate occasions. Both are vindictive little devils. Hornets will chase you until you get them or they get you. Personal experience.
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Fawning over ( 
) your image, I realize I don’t know what that tree in the foreground dangling potentials in hornet-homesteads is. Seems like one of the five-lobed acers (maples), but those lobes cut exceptionally sharp and deep. Maybe the sun’s glare fools, for the shading in the leaves doesn’t seem like a Silver Maple’s, which I almost never see growing that close to a stream bank, like the 3-lobed Sugar/Red/Swamp brethren. Maybe it’s (sic)sum kinda gum?
Hello, deer (
) I don’t know a lot about trees but I’m fairly certain this is a Sugar Maple. I suspect it’s been growing in that spot since before the banks of this beautiful creek started suffering excessive erosion problems. Once I have a better camera, I will get a photo of the hornet habitat - from as far away as possible!
Thanks. The individual leaf lobes seem longer and thinner than I recall, but then it’s a longer access recall for thinner returns in my Programma 101-5 RAM. Someday hope to see a Harlequin Maple, like I did several years ago on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls by their Butterfly Conservatory.
Though it’s a Fawna…err, Fauna thread, ya gotta have that Flora, too.
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I’ve never even heard of this. What a gorgeous tree! One of my favorite woods is Birdseye Maple. Very elusive - I’ve never encountered one in the wild. 
Something tells me your memory is just fine. I wasn’t sure about the tree in my photo so looked it up. I found that the appearance of the leaves of the Sugar Maple varies somewhat. I wonder it it’s a regional thing, or a factor of soil condition?
Ah, dear Pru,
I wish I knew,
what lurks within,
the maple’s skin.
But plain to me’s
a grand canopy,
and this bird’s eye
blinks as I sigh.
For sun needs shade,
and sweetest light’s in glade,
glancing edge of wood,
that rooted giants stood.
We can not all stride up,
to such Titans,
as the Redwood, or Banyan, or Cypress,
and yet,
stumbling in rambling
forests fallen and arose,
occasionally, fortuitously,
we are given privilege,
and awe,
before a grand survivor
in oak, maple, poplar,
or coniferous brethren
of fir, hemlock, spruce,
somehow unravaged
by fire, insect, or,
Man’s scheme.
That they still stand,
having not fallen,
nor standing,
for anything new man has in scheme,
amazes,
and admiration
like a bird,
rises into soaring boughs,
to alight.
And,
when these standing sentinels,
ending their watch
come down to earth,
I am reminded,
to tread light,
for something big,
is in these little beginnings
I wobble steps over,
in the forest duff.
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This is beautiful, and you made me cry.
There is a maple in California called a Big Leaf Maple (acer macrophyllum). Grows to large height and girth. Has the same leaf as the deer picture. Not sure it posted correctly, but it has the long tail pointed leaf and is a swamp dweller.
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Intruded to within feet of them and they just looked back. Tried to capture in the fading light. The shot registered, but was so heavily pixelated, I almost deleted it. The most intimate moment I ever experienced in the wild.
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That sure looks the “Macro” Acer of glades part! Thanks.
Can you smoke Big Leaf Maple ? Looks familiar and it’s from California.
I just read that Bigleaf and Sugar Maples are related. Good eye.
Maples are weird ducks (no pun intened canoeswith’). Trees have regional names that vary. Some trees, like the sycamore is acer pseudoplantanus (acer), hmmm. Sycamore can be tapped and the fluid is safe to drink. The fluid also . . . can be reduced to make an inferior syrup. Go figure, eh, Pru. The tulip poplar (a magnificent, straight, short-grain monster of the forest) is not a poplar at all (populus include slender short-lived Lombardy; Cottonwood with its fluffy seed; the quaking Aspen that lines river banks, with mesmerizing shimmering leaves. Tulip poplar is magnoliaceae family (magnolia); notice the delicate springtime yellow flower. It’s odd how maple and poplar dust has a distinct sweet taste, but burning maple flavors meat, while poplar makes it bitter. Hickory can smell like butterscotch, while some hickory smells like a horse barn.
I mention this because anyone who can look at a deer and notices leaves out of place in an environment that favors bald cyprus deserves an answer. You guys aren’t really kayakers. You’re naturalists who became adept at kayaking so you can see the beautiful works of nature. The better your boat, the more you can see. This thread has more posts than any other; it changed my . . . perspective on kayaking. Someone on this thread taught me - it isn’t the tool. It’s the adventure, and what an adventure it has turned out to be. Welcome observations. I’m looking for those plant brains. I once saw mats of floating plant matter that had the aspect of a cohesive organism. Just once.
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Looking at my tree id book and my Dirr’s, the fawn tree appears from leaf and bark to be Acer saccharinum, aka Silver, Soft, White, Water, and River Maple. Habitat is listed as stream banks, flood plains and swamps. That and Red Maple (very different leaves) are the most common trees along the river banks where I paddle in SE Michigan.
I think it’s the same thing, but in this area Acer saccharum is called the Sugar Maple.