June 1, 2018: Describe your walk by adding a comment below
Each time you go out and make observations for this project, describe your walk by adding a comment to this post. Include the date, distance walked, and categories that you used for this walk.
Suggested format:
Date. Place. Distance walked today. Total distance for this project.
Categories.
Brief description of the area, what you saw, what you learned, who was with you, or any other details you care to share.
Comments
6-1-18. Middle School, Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 278.25 miles total
Categories: identifiable, insects, flowering
I had about 15 minutes waiting for a bus to arrive from a school trip and walked a weedy border on the edge of school property. The highlights were two different kids of blue-eyed-grass, both with bigger flowers than whatever grows in my yard.
6-2-18. Lake Hopatcong State Park, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 279.75 miles total
Categories: weeds, flowering, pond weeds, shells
I took my 11 year old up to this state park with a man-made beach on the largest reservoir in the state. There were a ton of interesting weeds in the untended flowerbeds by the restrooms, the usual collection of weeds in the heavily used woods, and 6 different (I think) water plants (and two mollusks). Then after my camera died, four more flowering plants and a nice water snake. Oh well. My daughter was grossed out by the "seaweed" until we started collecting different types, then enthusiastically helped. @charlie do you do pondweeds, too? Or just wetlands that are not lakes? I got P. crispus straightened out, and the milfoil and coontail, but the other pondweeds are killing me.
I am trying to figure out the pond plants! i just went out on a pond with someone who knows them. So much to learn. P. crispus is out here too and the image of straightening it out is funny since it's so wavy. we have lots of milfoils and bladderworts and other potamogetons. Some aren't too hard, others are. The bladderworts are hard to find blooming.
6-3-18. Washington Crossing State Park, NJ 1.25 miles today, 281 miles total
categories: weeds
I took a different daughter, Molly, the 19-year-old, to this park at the sight where Washington crossed the Delaware and then marched on Trenton on Christmas Day (and killed Colonel Rall, who is supposedly a distant cousin of my husband). It is supposed to have the largest trees in the state of several different species, but we weren't able to find them. Molly likes to try to guess what things are called, and there were a lot of very large trees with very old labels on them, which was fun to check out at any rate. We were sent over to the nature center on the opposite side of the park to find a naturalist who might know where the trees are, but there was no one there.
Plant-wise we found my first Venus looking glass of the year, and a viburnum I don't know. False indigo and sumac were blooming . There was lots of deutzia and the privet was just starting to bloom. This is a just a bit south of me and probably two days ahead. I always run around on "privet-blooming week" trying to ID the unknown privets I've found during the year. Wineberry is blooming; I can't wait for the berries themselves. There was a mulberry in fruit. And Molly found a whole tulip tree blossomk that had fallen from a tree, so stuck it behind her ear.
6-4-18. New Market Pond, Piscataway, NJ. 0.75 mile today, 281.75 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, wetland plants, weeds
Walked along this pond I'd been to once before. Lots of stuff was blooming: Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora rose, several grasses, wineberry, leafy spurge (I don't see it often), silky dogwood, border privet, canada thistle (just starting), my first yellow flag of the year, first spatterdock, too., stringy stonecrop, field and hedge bindweeds, english plantain, some forget me not, red clover, arrowwood, least and field hop clovers, mouse ear chickweed, white campion, sandwort, white clover, scarlet pimpernel, a fleabane, meadow buttercup, birdsfoot trefoil, slender speedwell, and dwarf buttercup.
There were five kinds of flies, two of bees, a beetle, a damselfly and an ant. And robins, geese, a starling, and red winged blackbirds.
I also found arrow arum, pickerelweed, canada mayflower, and something I can't ID that looks kind of like a black currant to me.
6-5-18. Our Lady of the Mount, Warren: Great Swamp and Bayne Park, Harding, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 283.25 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects
I walked the circumference of the parking lot of the Catholic church where we vote as today was the primary. No real surprises here. Blooming were rose, wineberry, hawkweed, woodsorrel, clover, stonecrop, honeysuckle, dandelion.
Next I stopped at the boardwalks in the Great Swamp as I'd never done them in June. Not much blooming here, just fleabane, buttercup, woodsorrel and hawkweed on the path in. But out in the meadow by the parking lot there was blue flag; red, white, alsike, and sweet yellow clover, beardtongue, bedstraw, blue eyed grass, dewberries, trefoil, daisies, rose, yarrow, and plantain.
Then my actual goal: a pond I've driven past dozens and dozens of times but never stopped at. It was looking like rain at this point but held off. Not much blooming here that wasn't blooming elsewhere, but there were some galls, and a weeping willow full of amber snails, of all things. And a whole orgy of thistle stem gall flies (my daughter will be horrified).
On the way home I stopped at the Great Swamp Visitors' Center and walked a mowed path through the "unmanaged" section of the swamp (unmanaged except for mowing a path, I guess). The lovely surprise here was some two flowered cynthia blooming. The unpleasant surprise was a whole flock (okay, at least two) of deerflies that followed me the whole way back to my car. They few in my face but never actually bit me (but so aggravating!).
6-2-18. Marshfield, VT. 0.3 miles, 1278.5 miles total
Categories: dragonflies, blooms
This morning I attended a workshop given by Bryan Pfeiffer and Michael Blust to improve Odonate catching and identification. We started at the library in Marshfield for some net practice. Then we moved up the hill to Marshfield Pond to see what we could catch. Despite the netting practice, I didn’t catch much. I wish I had joined the lacrosse team in college! I managed to pancake a single bluet. Other folks were swinging away and managed to catch several Odes, including a chalk-fronted corporal and a springtime darner. Meanwhile, I found field speedwell, wild strawberry, choke cherry, golden alexanders, and star flower in bloom, and a dead toad in the road. A 12-year-old at the workshop caught a large crayfish (with his hands, not his insect net).
6-3. Smith Pond Bog, Hopkinton, NH. 0.2 miles today, 1278.7 miles total.
Categories: blooms, dragonflies, galls
I stopped off at Smith Pond Bog today on my journey between New Hampshire and Vermont to try and practice some of my dragonfly skills from yesterday. I caught a dot-tailed whiteface and a frosted whiteface with my camera, not my net. I also found a pair of frosted whitefaces “doing the wheel”. I even caught a dragon with my net, but I haven’t been able to identify it yet. Blooms for the day were Canada mayflower, purple iris, sheep laurel, yellow waterlily, wild sarsaparilla, winterberry, common cinquefoil, starflower, naked broomrape, forget-me-not, blackberry, cow vetch, and red clover. Galls were cherry leaf galls, maple leaf galls, and beech leaf galls.
6-4. Half Moon State Park, Hubbardton, VT. 0.3 miles today, 1279 miles total.
Categories: animals, blooms
Today I made a trip out to Half Moon State Park in Hubbardton so that I could give an iNaturalist workshop in Castleton tomorrow. Once arrived and set up in my camp cabin, I went for a short walk out back to meet my neighbors. I found a bullfrog, a mallard, an eastern chipmunk and a foamflower.
6-5. Half Moon State Park, Hubbardton, VT. 4.2 miles today, 1283.2 miles total.
Categories: blooms, ferns, bryophytes
After talking to the state park naturalists about iNaturalist, I explored some of the trails at Half Moon State Park. I started off photographing every red eft I saw, as I usually do at home or in New Hampshire. But they were EVERYWHERE. After photographing about 15-20 within 100 feet, I decided to only photograph them if I could find fit at least 3 in 1 frame. Or if they were dead. Since I haven’t been to this part of the state before, I went a little overboard with photographing blooms today. I found common cinquefoil, Canada mayflower, gaywings, dewberry, Tatarian honeysuckle, herb Robert, golden Alexanders, raspberry, English plantain, buttercups, white clover, ground ivy, false Solomon’s seal, wild columbine, wild strawberry, Indian cucumber root, white violets, fleabane, Jack-in-the-pulpit, forget-me-not, black medick, garlic mustard, pink lady’s slipper, mountain wood sorrel, wild bleeding heart, red osier dogwood, Barbarea vulgaris, marsh bedstraw, bunchberry, and a new-to-me yellow flower that appeared to be attached in umbels to goldthread leaves. I “collected” a few common mosses: Hypnum imponens, Bazzania triloba, Leucobryum glaucum, Thuidium delicatulum, and Polytrichum juniperinum. I also made a basic fern collection: polypody, bracken, Cinnamon, marsh, maiden hair, royal, lady, rattlesnake, Christmas, sensitive, hayscent, and ostrich.
6-6. Half Moon State Park, Hubbardton, VT. 8 miles today, 1291.3 miles total.
Categories: plants I didn’t see yesterday, dragonflies, road kill
Before heading home this morning, I headed off for one more short hike through the park. At least, I thought it would be a 3 mile hike, but the signage wasn’t great, and I ended up doing several loops through the woods before I finally found my way out. A lovely place to get lost, though. And I found a Braun’s holly fern along the way. Other new plants for this trip were Anomodon attenuatus, blue-eyed grass, pussy toes, yellow water lily, purple violets, daisy, bird’s foot trefoil, and cow vetch. I also managed to “catch” a chalk-fronted corporal, a bluet, and a widow skimmer.
6-6-18. Veterans' Memorial Drive, Somerville; Gulick House, Belle Meade; Skillman Park, Skillman: and Thompson Preserve and Stony Brook Pond Pennington; all in NJ. 1.25 miles today, 284.5 miles total.
categories: flowering, insects, galls
My daughter left medication at home and realized late Tuesday night. So Wednesday I drove it down to her, doing my usual stopping along the way to briefly check out interesting areas. But first I walked for half an hour in Somerville, between a doctor's appointment and a Weight Watchers meeting. Lots of weeds flowering, lots of insects. Surprises included goatsbeard, ebony spleenwort, and rabbitsfoot clover (which is very common by my parents in NH, but almost never seen in NJ).
My first stop was a pullover off the US highway where a train line used to go through. Only surprise was my first blooming hairy (?) vetch of the year.
Next was a historic home where I caught a staghorn sumac blooming and some nice grape flowers.
Then I stopped at a park simply because it had a portajohn (and did not take any pictures inside this time), but then walked around a copse of almost nothing but mugwort and black locust (where in the end I found 15 other plant species, 6 identifiable insects, and a fungus).
Next was a grassland I'd visited in the fall. The big surprise here was a very nice net-winged beetle.
Finally, on the way home, I stopped at Quick Check and checked out the pond behind the store, which was about half an acre and had no water visible whatsoever as the surface was completely covered in waterchestnut.
Very glad to have you back, it was getting a bit lonely walking all by myself! I look forward to the Yellowstone photos. I've only been once, when I was 13, and I don't remember it well at all.
6-7-18. Washington Rock, Green Brook; Negri-Nepote, Somerset; and Cadwalader, Trenton; all parks in NJ. 1.0 miles today, 285.5 miles total
Categories: flowering, insects
Despite having dropped off medication yesterday, I got to go back down to Trenton today to help my daughter pack up at the end of her three week teaching course. First, though, I walked at Washington Rock, on the way home from an appointment in Elizabeth (which is 25 miles in the opposite direction from Trenton, but such is my life). I picked this park because once, four years ago, I'd seen yellow star grass here, and lots of people had been posting it this month. Lo and behold it was still there, and thriving. I've only ever seen it in one other location, though it's not supposed to be rare (and this was a mowed lawn).
On the way to Trenton I stopped at the Negri-Nepote "native grassland" (except that grasslands are not really native in NJ). I thought I hadn't been here in years, but it turns out it was just last June. Go figure. Lots of insects here, including several pairs of mating soldier beetles (to offend my daughter, Katie). I found the first ripe wild strawberries of the year (delicious) and the first almost-ripe mulberry (not as delicious).
Down at the college I took Molly to Cadwalader Park, the neglected Trenton City Park designed originally by Olmstead. They spent the late fall and winter putting in a very nice looking playground with insect-themed equipment (a dragonfly seesaw, and caterpillar balance beam, etc.). We walked over a bridge to the Delaware Canal towpath and followed it across an aqueduct and back. Surprises included a (planted) Juneberry, a Venus's looking glass, and the first blooming honewort of the year. Molly is practicing her plant identification since she's working as a camp counselor this summer and is getting pretty good. She knew about half the plants she spotted today.
6/7/18. Calais, VT. 3.6 miles today, 1294.9 miles total.
Categories: phenology, insects, birds
I'm back in town at last and able to both get out and walk and write a little on the computer. The thousands of photos from last week's adventures in Yellowstone will have to wait. But maybe sometime this month I'll get to them. Meanwhile, I enjoyed a beautiful walk this afternoon up to one of my favorite roads in town, one I have walked several times already this spring. But I wanted to go there especially today in search of the showy orchis that blooms in the ditch during the first week in June. And yes indeed, there it was, in beautiful purple and white flowers! One or two of the flowers were just starting to wilt, so I'm glad I didn't wait any longer to go visit. What makes me worried is that our road crew seems to have acquired a new spraying machine. I'm not sure what they're spraying, but it's an evil dark aqua color that they're putting on the side of the roads. Weed killer? Fertilizer? So far, the spray hasn't hit the road with the orchis. I hope they stay clear of that road, since I haven't found showy orchis anywhere else in town, and this little colony is right beside the road bed. Other plants blooming here today are Virginia waterleaf, red osier dogwood and alternate-leaved dogwood, mountain maple, golden Alexanders, wood sorrels, garlic mustard and wild chervil. I had a lot of fun chasing moths, and caught a sharp-angled carpet moth. There were also plenty of leaf galls to admire. I saw some on basswood leaves, elm leaves, and cherry leaves. My camera battery ran out half way through the walk, so I had to use my phone camera for the second half of the walk. That meant no more flying insects or birds, but I caught a Spilosoma virginica caterpillar and a red eft with my phone.
6-8-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais VT. 3 miles today, 1297.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, phenology
I walked up Pekin Brook this morning listening for birds. A whole lot has changed since late May when I last made this walk. I think many of the birds are now nesting instead of establishing territories, so it was a lot quieter. Still, I counted 33 species for the morning, including 7 alder flycatchers. The shrubby wetlands and open fields seem to be very popular with the flycatchers. A heard 3 veeries singing in the woods and one even came up close and called loudly. I got some good looks at that one and some photos as well. Also heard in the woods were some hermit thrushes and a wood thrush. It sounded like there may have been a raven argument going on over the hill, but I couldn't see it to verify. A single raven flew overhead, coming from the direction of the ruckus. A single goose flew over in the other direction. I also saw a lot (9) common starlings today, mostly around barns. And as I was headed back up George Rd, I came upon a pileated woodpecker working near the ground very close to the road. He was not happy to see me and flew off in a huff. I mostly saw the same blooms as yesterday, so I restrained my shutter finger and tried to only shoot new plants, ones I didn't see yesterday, since I'm practically in the same place as yesterday and I've been up and down this road hundreds of times before. Road crossers today included both forest tent caterpillar and eastern tent caterpillar, a lettered habrosyne (in moth form) and a red eft. Today's roadkill was a rodent of unidentifiable genus. I could barely tell it was a mammal, but based on size, if it was a mammal, it was most likely a rodent. Plants of note included riverbank grape buds, serviceberry fruit (not quite ripe), and highbush cranberries in full bloom.
6-9-18. Bike Path, Montpelier, VT. 3.5 miles today, 1301.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, new blooms
After yesterday's before-breakfast walk, I decided to postpone my walks until after lunch for a while. I'd like to focus on butterflies and dragonflies, but I found there were none of them flying around in the early morning hours. Since warbler season is winding to a close, there doesn't seem any great benefit to getting outside before the butterflies fly. Last week, @bryanpfeiffer and @blustm gave a superb hands-on dragonfly workshop that I attended. I think I'll carry my net on walks in hopes of bagging some beauties (catch and release, of course). I was determined to catch at least one dragonfly today, but sometimes determination is not enough. Although it was sunny, it was also breezy, and I just didn't see any dragonflies. I saw one at lunch at the Hunger Mountain Coop, just before I got my net. But none after that. I saw a skipper, a tiger swallowtail, a white admiral, and another large butterfly that was brown on the outside with prominent white spots (maybe another white admiral, but it wasn't opening its wings). I also caught a micro moth, some kind of crambid. I chased a bumblebee, with no success, and caught a sweat bee pollinating a fleabane. New blooms for today were white campion, black locust, riverbank grape (full bloom), and a bedstraw. For birds, I caught several song sparrows, a grackle, several American redstarts, and 34 gulls (probably ring bills). I also heard some cat birds, several goldfinches, an alder flycatcher, and a northern cardinal, but didn't get photos.
Neat, we took a little walk with Holly there after dinner, didn't do much inat since i've been there a billion times but i did add black willow (which apparently hasn't been added from the river yet) and some dumb oriental bittersweet that i hadn't noticed before. I noticed a few sick white ash and with the borer found in town i should keep an eye on those :(
6-10-18. North Branch Nature Center. 1.7 miles today, 1303.1 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, new blooms
Today was our last session of the beginner birding class at the Nature Center with @cdarmstadt and 17 other birders. Today we observed and helped out a little with banding for the MAPS: MONITORING AVIAN PRODUCTIVITY AND SURVIVORSHIP project. The Nature Center has been participating with the project for over 10 years. They put out 5 nets in the pre-dawn hours, then check them every half hour for six hours, banding every bird they catch after recording a batch of data about gender, plumage, condition, and weight. Our class members got to help out with the net checks, recording the data, and releasing the birds. We got some really close up views of the birds and got to learn about primaries and secondaries (wing feathers). At the nets, we found chestnut warblers, a yellow warbler, some cat birds, 2 ruby-throated hummingbirds (which were too small to band), a yellow-bellied sapsucker, a goldfinch, and a common yellow throat. I also wandered around the trails a bit and saw quite a few American redstarts. New blooms for this morning were a yellow hawkweed and an orange hawkweed, For insects, I saw a stink bug, a giant cranefly, a calligrapher beetle, and a wood nymph butterfly.
6-11-18. Clough State Park, Dunbarton NH. 4.5 miles today, 1307.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, new blooms
I took an early morning bird walk to Clough State Park this morning to the start of the trail system near the family cabin. New blooms for the morning were multiflora rosa in glorious (hah!) full bloom, a Fallopia bindweed (F. cilinodis), an escaped rhododendron, common yarrow, and a viburnum that I don't know. Birding was very rich, with lots of bobolinks. Some of the fields down there are just for decoration, not working farm fields, and I think that's better for bobolinks, since they don't get mowed during nesting season. I saw several fields with just mowed hay, though, so that would be really bad for bobolinks since they went to the trouble to try to nest and were doomed. Other birds included several thrushes, perhaps wood thrushes. They didn't look like hermit thrushes, and I didn't hear any veeries around, but I heard lots of wood thrushes, so that's why I'm guessing the ones I saw were wood thrushes. Far across Stark Pond I saw a small duck with a reddish head that looked exactly like a female hooded merganser. I tried to call it that on eBird, but apparently hooded mergansers haven't been reported in the area, so I'll have to wait on some confirmations of my photos before I put a name on it for sure. I also saw a pair of cowbirds (male and female) along the road.
After breakfast, I drove my mother to the other end of the park, and we walked across the Everett Dam and the first part of the trail across the dam. We saw lots of new blooming flowers, and most of them were yellow, except for the first one we saw, Canada toadflax. We saw several kinds of yellow hawkweeds, including one I don't recall seeing before with long needle-like leaves. Also, tower mustard, at least 3 kinds of cinquefoil (common, silver, and ...?), yellow waterlily, and another yellow-flowering water plant. My big goal was to catch a dragonfly, which we did. We managed (working as a team) to bag a bluet, probably Enallagma hagenii. We also saw several chalk-fronted corporals along the trail and a crescent butterfly.
6-11-18. Elm Ave. Warren, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 287 miles total.
Categories: blooming, galls
I walked down a dead end road across from a park I've iNat-ed many times. I've driven this road but never walked it. It was a planned community with a grid of streets off either side of this "main" road, called First Street through Eleventh Street (not a lot of creativity here) but the vast majority were never built on, and even the largest has only a handful of houses. Elm is paved but the little numbered streets are among the only ones in town that are still gravel. The entire thing is heavily wooded, with a wet section. I saw pretty much every shady weed and most of the shady natives that can deal with disturbance in our area, but I also found a new (to me in Warren) horsetail. I've seen rough horsetail up by you all when I was at a family wedding in Corinth, VT, but I didn't post it and I've never seen it in NJ (it will be the 7th in the state, when I get around to posting it; I'm backed upon photo posting all the way to May 15; have been posting only what I don't take on walks ).
I've never seen tower mustard. Is your yellow water lily a Nuphar sp., or something else (I've never seen any other yellow water-lilies, though I've heard they exist). I was just thinking today that it must be about time for your multiflora to bloom, as ours are nearly done.
6-12-18. Number Ten Pond, Calais, VT. 2.6 miles today, 1310.3 miles total.
Categories: birds, new blooms, insects, roadkill
I was up with the dawn again today due to another round of Lyme medication that requires early morning dosing. So much for waiting until the middle of the day so I could chase dragonflies! Insects were not flying this morning, or at least, not flying very well. I noted a number of insects trying to fly and flopping on their backs in the road (at 37F). The birds were singing, though. I saw lots of song sparrows and some phoebes and chickadees. Out on the water I saw a female mallard with 6 little ones. I also heard a loon calling across the lake, but it was too foggy to see the loon. I didn't come up with much for new blooms today, just common comfrey and snakewort liverwort (well, it wasn't exactly blooming, but was covered with female cones). I shot a few beetles on the road and a giant crane fly. I also found a couple flattened and well dried red efts on the road.
The Nuphar was probably N. variegata. The other yellow plant on the water looked a bit like a bladderwort, but I couldn't get close enough to really check. I'm hoping that I got enough details on my photo to look it up later. I just checked my database and found I've only ever seen tower mustard at Clough's State Park. I should look for it elsewhere in Dunbarton.
What a fine development to explore! We used to have a similar one near us when we lived in Framingham, MA. It had an abandoned "palace" at the end of the road, complete with weeds all around the indoor swimming pool. (I just checked my old photos--it looks like there were cottonwoods growing up around the pool.) I'm looking forward to seeing your discoveries from the planned-but-not-built community.
6-12-18. Duke Farms, Hillsborough, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 287.25 miles total.
Categories: whatever caught my daughter's eye
I took my 19 year old, Molly, for a bike ride at the lovely Duke Farm preserve on the former estate of Doris Duke. Eventually we stopped and walked along a random path through woods and a meadow. Foxglove beardtongue and black elder were blooming. We found a plant covered in grove snails. Creeping Jenny was blooming and I've managed to miss it doing so for the past two years, so I was very excited. She was practicing her plant ID skills and was very pleased to find a dead elder twig so she could call it an elder wand and show it to her Harry Potter club friends.
6-13-18. Exchange Field, Somerville, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 287.75 miles total.
Categories: blooming, galls, insects.
I have been intending to stop and walk at this park since the winter and finally got around to it today. It's mostly playing fields but the back edge follows a brook, and there was a spot you could walk under the road bridge. There was the usual graffiti there, but also one that said, basically, don't pay attention to all the awful stuff written here; you are an awesome person. I liked that one.
There was not much in the way of unusual plants here, but it was overcast and thinking about drizzling, and so there were a large number of slow flying insects perched on leaves. I'll have to go through them thoroughly to see if any are new to me.
Tonight was the town fair, "Expo", with rides and food, and I took my younger daughers, Becca and Katie, over. They rode the rides while I took Molly shopping, then I came back to find them, only they had both left the fair to go play in the woods along the brook nearby. I think they take after me.
It was hot and sticky tonight and I'd overdone it at the fair, and it was lovely to be able to soak in our (little, cold, above-ground) pool and watch the fireflies tonight. I love that about June. There were bats, too. I hope they were eating more mosquitoes than fireflies!
tons of fireflies last night and tonight. my long exposure app i had on my phone doesn't work any more so i can't do a long exposure picture of fireflies so no inat observation.
6-13-18. Leonard Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1313.3 miles total.
Categories: birds, new blooms, insects
I was contacted yesterday by a researcher from Iowa who will be visiting Central Vermont in a week looking for Strauzia flies. Apparently, they are stem borers in Helianthus plants of several species. So I walked up George Rd to check on our local Helianthus patch before his visit. The plants are now about 2-3 feet tall. I didn't see any Strauzia flies on them, but it was probably too early in the morning for them to be out. Maybe I'll try visiting a few Helianthus patches this week. From the Helianthus patch, I continued on up Leonard all the way to the end and a little ways down Fowler Rd. Birding along the road was excellent, especially when I came out to the farm on the driveable end of the road. In the open farm fields were some meadowlarks and there were several red-winged blackbirds on the tiny pond. And then there was some odd squawking coming from the pond. I decided the squawker was probably a Virginia rail, but it never came out into view. On my way back, a broad-winged hawk was perched in a tree over the trail, calling loudly as I passed under. Insects for the day included a Ctenucha virginica caterpillar, a woolly bear caterpillar, a Zanclognatha moth, a rosy maple moth, a pair of mating pale beauty moths, and cherry leaf galls. I also found a pair of mating amber snails in some tall grass. New blooms were common columbine, spotted medick, and water forget-me-not.
6-14-18. Quarry Rd, Adamant, VT. 2.9 miles today, 1316.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, road kill, new blooms
I walked up Quarry Rd this morning in search of birds and found quite a few, including an olive-sided flycatcher. I originally identified it on eBird as a great-crested flycatcher. It was calling "Quick, three beers!" very loudly and clearly. I couldn't remember which flycatcher always orders 3 beers, and unfortunately, the Sibley phone app doesn't let you search birds by call mnemonics. I just looked it up, and the 3 beer bird is definitely an olive-sided flycatcher. The other beer bird is the alder flycatcher, which calls "Free beer!" continuously. I heard several of them today as well. A good day for beer in Adamant! Out on the pond I saw a mother wood duck with 3 ducklings, and towards downtown Adamant, I saw 6 adult geese herding 2 groups of 4 goslings. Up near the Quarry Works theater, I was trying to chase down a red-eyed vireo when I kept hearing loud crunching noises coming from the theater. I finally turned around to see what was going on at the theater. It turns out a pair of very large porcupines were busy eating the porch furniture. One of them was wrapped around what remained of an end table, gnawing at the table legs vigorously. Large bites had also been taken out of church pew bench nearby. Yikes! I'm glad we don't have porkies for neighbors! Down at the swimming hole below Adamant Pond, a beaver was swimming around near the cement dam at the outlet. When it saw me, it started doing the tail slapping display. I watched the display for 3-4 rounds before leaving the pond to give the beaver some space. New blooms for the day were yellow rattle, highbush cranberry, garden lupine, and soapwort. Roadkill for today were all frogs: a wood frog, a bull frog, and a green frog.
6-14-18. Watchung Reservation, Mountainside (mostly), NJ. 2.0 miles today, 289.75 miles total
Categories: flowering, insects, galls
I walked a path that was my favorite hike to take my campers on back when I was a camp counselor 30 years ago. It's changed a bit, and I got somewhat lost, but had fun. The highlight was a slow part of a stream filled with pondweed and covered in damsel and dragonflies. Must have been 5 different types including lots of ebony jewelwings.
My camera has been limping along for quite a while, and now the USB port has utterly failed. I have another camera body, but it's on/off switch has also failed (to "on"). Both bodies have about 40% charge left and no way to recharge them, and neither will currently talk to my computer. So I have no way to download the photos I took (though the SD cards are fine). So I bit the bullet and ordered a new body. May even arrive today. In the meantime I have a month's worth of back photos to process!
I have never seen a live porcupine outside a zoo. I had no idea they would eat patio furniture, yikes!
I've also never seen yellow rattle. And no blooming soapwort yet this year, but I've been more in woods than fields lately. Or perhaps you're starting to pull ahead of me; bloom-wise.
@Erikamitchell , off topic but I saw you were going to be at the Montpelier bioblitz and I'm super excited! Gonna be a great group. I will be helping some with inaturalist logistics, but still will have some time to blitz, i wonder if i can get more species than you? I doubt it :)
6-15-18. Chickering Bog, Calais VT. 2.3 miles today, 1318.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms
I took a walk out to Chickering Pond this morning. I couldn't go to the Bog, which is still closed due to nesting goshawks. I would have loved to check on the pitcher plants in the bog, which are probably in glorious full bloom right about now. I guess I'll have to find some pitcher plants somewhere else to see the blooms this year. I walked the private Chickering trails this morning on down to the pond in their backyard. The Chickerings have an amazing trail system that they built for family recreational use and post for no hunting, hikers welcome. I found some recent blowdowns along the trail, tamaracks fully leafed out and down across the trail. Yet everywhere a tree fell across the trail, it had been chainsawed (unlike on the Bog access trail, where maintenance can take months). The leaves had also been swept off the miles of trails to reduce tick risks. Simply amazing to keep in mind these trails are kept so well maintained by just 1-2 people. Not much blooming in the woods, and the birds were quiet since it was drizzling. Nearly the first thing I saw when I got out of the car was a set of bear tracks on the road, tracks outlined in black mud on the hard packed gray dirt road surface, very fresh. Blooms for today included large-leaved avens, yellow and purple iris, ground ivy, star flower, and my first blue bead lily of the year. The only birds I caught on "film" were a phoebe and a drenched robin.
Enjoy that new camera body, Sara! I look forward to seeing your photos when you get a way to download them.
As for the Montpelier bioblitz, Sean Beckett at the Nature Center is trying to get me to head up the bryology efforts. I'm such a beginner bryologist, but if they can't find someone more knowledgeable, I may need to concentrate on mosses for the blitz. Anyway, it's going to be a fun time, and I know we'll all see plenty of species. Looking forward to seeing you there, Charlie!
I would love to check out more of those Chickering trails now that blackfly season is winding down, how do you find them? Just off the bog trail in?
yeah, i just volunteered to help with iNaturalist so while i'm on the vascular plants and natural communities group list, i'll also probably be doing some technical support. Still want to get out and explore that private parcel to the north that access has been granted to though!
6-16-18. Eagle Rock, West Orange, NJ and Nishuane, Montclair, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 291 miles total
Categories: flowering, insects, weeds
I had to go to Montclair to be monitored to renew my CPR instructor's certificate. The class started at 8 am and I had to be there to set up, but I wanted to walk, and got to Eagle Rock Park just before 7 am. I'd never been here before, but it has the most perfect views of New York City I have ever seen. You can see both uptown and downtown at once (which is not generally true when you are closer). But I walked around the parking lot, at which point my (new) camera battery died. Guess I'd not fully charged it when I'd thought I had. So I continued through the woods and down a deserted road with just my phone camera. Lots and lots of bugs just waking up on Japanese knotweed leaves. Otherwise jetbead and Japanese angelica tree were probably the most interesting.
After class I looked for a park in the area that no one had done for iNat before and found Nishuane. It is a fairly urban park, but there was a patch of woods, which must have an enormous deer population as there was not a speck of greenery in there below head high. Mostly typical weeds around the edges here. The big surprise for me was lesser swine cress, Lepidium didymum (I like that species name, too), a first for me.
6-17-18. Island Beach State Park, Seaside Park, NJ. 1.75 miles today, 292.75 miles total.
Categories: shells, beach stuff
We have traditionally gone to the beach for Father's Day, though we haven't managed it the last few years. The weather was perfect, sunny and 90 degrees, and we went as usual to Island Beach which has lovely stretches of sand surrounded by natural areas. The kids and I tried to collect as many different types of shells as possible. There were a ton of dead "mole crabs" (iNat calls them sand crabs), and I found a whole dead spider crab.
6-16-18. Hayden Rd, Calais, VT & Clough State Park, Dunbarton, NH. 3.9 miles today, 1322.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, road crossers
I took a hike up Hayden Rd in North Calais for the first time this season. It's a lovely road through deep woods that is barely navigable by car, just right for walking. Along the way, I heard many, many birds, including indigo buntings, wood thrushes, hermit thrushes, and veeries, and my first black-billed cuckoo of the season. But I only managed to see some robins, a phoebe, a cedar waxwing, and a brown creeper. Blooms that caught my eye today were garden lupine, garden columbine (off-white), some yellow daylilies growing out of control along a farm field, and some Vinca minor. Road crossers today were a forest tent caterpillar and an Arion slug. Scat of the day was coyote.
In the afternoon, I went to Clough State Park in Dunbarton with my sister, brother-in-law, and their son. While the swam, I chased dragonflies with my net. I caught a bluet (ID yet to be determined), an Ischnura verticalis, and white-fronted corporal. Unfortunately, I had to stop early because my tick bites were getting me down. I am slowly learning to be more careful where I walk.
6-17-18. Barnard Hill Rd, Dunbarton NH. 3.6 miles today, 1326 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, insects, road kill
I followed my mother's childhood walk to school this morning, up Barnard Hill Rd to Dunbarton Center. I wanted to check on the American chestnuts I had seen there last summer, and to see if I could find any leaf galls on them. Just curious. I did find plenty of small chestnut sprouts, but no leaf galls, or any other galls that I could spot. Along the way up the hill I was delighted to hear bobolinks singing in the open fields. I also saw robins, a huge flock of house sparrows on a pile of firewood logs, some chipping sparrows, and a chestnut-sided warbler in Dunbarton Center. It was warm enough for a few butterflies, even before 7AM--a skipper and a tiger swallowtail. I also found an interesting grape leaf gall that I have not noticed before. Roadkill today included a toad, a wood frog, a flat frog (species undeterminable), a chipmunk and a shrew. Scat of the day was fox.
6-18-18. Rutgers Gardens, North Brunswick, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 293.5 miles total.
Categories: insects, what caught my daughter's eye.
I had seen that several people saw interesting plants in the river section at the back of Rutgers Gardens. There's a path there, so I figured I'd walk it. But it's 20 feet above the river; they must have been in boats. Still, my daughter, Molly (19), and I had fun finding bugs, a family of chipmunks, plants that she knows the names of (mostly). We also spotted a Nuphar that might not be spatterdock, as not one of the leaves was the least bit emergent. I'll have to check my keys, but I think that was one of the interesting water plants, at least. There were lots of common whitetail dragonflies, though, and I thought of you (and wished I'd had a net).
6-18-18. Peck Hill Rd, Calais VT. 2.8 miles today, 1328.8 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, road kill, road crossers
My walk this morning was delayed while I waited for the yearling bear to get off the front steps and leave the yard. When I first woke up, he was rolling the ash cans around the yard. The cans are regular metal trash cans, but they've never held trash, just wood ashes. The bear is clearly very familiar with trash cans and the goodies they usually hold. After finding nothing in the cans, he came up to the front door and tried the handle. Fortunately, I was able to lock it first. Then he waved at me through the living room window and swatted the window with his paw while I sat 2 feet away shooting him with my phone. I was very pleased that the window did not break. He then pulled down the young cherry tree in the yard in an attempt to climb it, flossed his teeth with the ropes hanging from branches that we hang corn on for the turkeys in winter, and played with the ash cans some more before wandering off into the woods.
Once I finally got out, I headed towards Peck Hill Rd. Just as I left the driveway, I spooked a deer, who stomped and snorted at me before darting into the woods. This morning I shot phoebes, robins, and barn swallows, but I heard a lot more birds, including black-throated blue warblers, black-throated green warblers, and black-and-white warblers. Blooms for the day included white avens, common yarrow, sweet woodruff, and a meadow rue with a huge head of pink flowers. Road crossers were an Arion slug, a northern pearly eye butterfly, and fat brown and yellow millipede. Roadkill was a white admiral butterfly, a powder moth, and a snake of undeterminable species.
I'm really loving those seashells! What wonderful finds! And that's a great tip about bugs on Japanese knotweed. I must inspect the next patch I see more carefully!
Charlie, to find the Chickering trails, head up the Chickering Bog access trail. Just before you get to the first little wetlands, look for a small side trail off to the left. Before the short patch of open ledge rock. Another way in is to continue along the snowmobile trail past where the Bog access trail heads up to the right. Just past that point where the Bog trail heads up that steep bank, the snowmobile trail goes out into an open meadow. You can follow the trail straight through the long section of the meadow, where it connects to a dirt track that leads down into the Chickering homestead, with side trails off to either side. Usually the trail through the meadow is mowed, although this week it wasn't, probably because there was so much chainsawing to do in the woods. Take a compass and/or download the area map on your phone in advance (no cell service up there), or you may end up wandering for longer than you intend.
sounds really neat, will have to check it out. I have seen that tiny trail to the right i think. we walked a small bit down that way but it was muddy (maybe mud season?) so we turned around. Have to try again.
I wonder if the bear you saw is the same one (or a sibling) of the one seen around our end of Montpelier recently. There was one on Towne Hill Road and North Street. Apparently it hasn't come through our field as our compost bins remain unbothered. Would be neat to see, but not with it messing up our stuff :) I saw one a few years ago near Morse Farm though. They are definitely around.
6-19-18. Mt. Horeb Rd., Warren, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 294.25 miles total
Categories: weeds
I wanted somewhere close by, shady, and with good footing to take a quick walk this afternoon, and ended up parking at Coddington Farm but walking the road. This section is not terribly built up and had watercress growing in the gutters. Not a lot blooming today: hop and white clovers, deptford pink, oxeye daisy, blueyed grass, privet, and at the end a new-to-me yellow mustard I will have to key out.
Your bear was very impressive. I'm not sure I'd have been so calm with one rattling my doorknob! We get about two a year here in town and they always cause a big stir, but they've never gotten closer than a couple of miles from my house.
The tiny trail to the right of the main Chickering Bog access trail is an interesting side trail through private lands, but it is not the way to the Chickering trail network. To get to the trail network, you need to take the tiny trail to the left well before the tiny trail to the right. Note that the main Bog access trail heads up the steep bank to the right, just before the stream bed crosses the snowmobile trail. This is right after the side trail to the right (that doesn't go to Chickering trail network, but might swing you around to the Bog if you find the right trail connections).
According to the town natural resources inventory, we have the best bear habitat in town in the woods behind our house. We see far too many bears, more than we'd really like to see. They're right up there with deer for being a nuisance. They greatly diminish our enjoyment of the yard since we can't feed birds in the summer, which means we have very few birds in the yard. We have to be careful about composting. Our neighbors have to put heavy duty-triple stranded electric fencing around their bee hive. Even so, the bears tore down their hive this spring. Learning to live with bears for neighbors is a good way to begin to comprehend the challenges faced by agriculturalists trying to live with elephants and other wild marauders in Africa. They may be wild and fascinating to watch, but they are not easy to live with..
6-19-18. Tucker Rd, Calais VT. 3.8 miles today, 1332.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, road crossers, road kill, blooms
I walked up to Tucker Rd this morning to check on the waterfall and see what new flowers might be blooming. On my way up George Rd, I found quite a few wild chervil plants pulled up by the roots and strewn into the road in hopes of killing them by having cars drive over them. When I found just a few more a little further up the road, I pulled them as well. Usually when I see invasives along my route, I let them be since it just seems hopeless to try to eliminate them all. But the person who had pulled the other wild chervils had done such a good job at getting virtually all of them on George Rd that it seemed like pulling the last few that I saw might actually get rid of them locally. We'll see. New blooms for today were bladder campion and a fuschia columbine. The plant surprise of the day was an Acer campestre, which I saw a lot in Gradignan, but I did not expect to see poking out of the woods along the road in Calais. I'm guessing that it escaped from a yard planting. Birds that I shot included robins, song sparrows, a mourning dove, an indigo bunting (my first "film" capture of the year), 6 turkeys, 8 ravens, and some crows. The ravens, crows, and 3 of the turkeys were all on a freshly mowed field. There were a lot of territorial squabbles going on in the field. A tom turkey and hen chased away another tom. A pair of ravens were keeping a group of 5 crows at bay, barely. And at the other end of the field, 6 more ravens chased a red fox out of the field. Road crossers today included a white-tailed deer, an eastern tent caterpillar, a red eft, and an eastern chipmunk. Road kill for today was a few toads (being consumed by Arion slugs), a wood frog, and a red eft. I also stopped to enjoy my first wild strawberry of the year. Fly honeysuckle fruits are also ripe, but I did not eat any.
oh wait i know the trail to the right, we popped out there on a wander once. i think i also know the trail to the left and we peeked down that too once. There's some flagging on some conifers right? Will have to check out further :) I don't know if the trail goes to it or not but there is a Heritage-mapped conifer swamp in there (via Matt Peters' neat wetland inventory) that i want to check out someday if it isn't posted.
Living with bears definitely sounds like a challenge. The other day we were playing with Holly in her little sandbox and she pointed and said 'My want to see that Bear!' We were surprised, was there a bear in our yard? No, it was a huge fat groundhog. I chased it off and Holly found that hilarious. It keeps burrowing around our house and will eventually find our garden so i am trying to haze it away. Maybe futile but... can't hurt to try. I'm sure some bear wanders through our land every 5 to 10 years but seeing as we are right near the edge of town it's not too common I think. I could try baiting them with a bird feeder. Just kidding. For some reason the feeders we have put out not only fail to attract bears but the birds show little interest also.
6-20-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1335.7 miles total.
Categories: blooms, birds
This morning I walked up Pekin Brook Rd to see what birds I could find. I heard several alder flycatchers, a veery, a wood thrush, and lots of warblers, including a black-and-white, 7 common yellowthroats, 2 American redstarts, a northern parula, a yellow warbler, a chestnut-sided warbler, a black-throated-blue warbler, a black-throated green, 18 song sparrows, and a cardinal. But I only caught a few song sparrows and robins on camera. Other excitement was finding a pair of amber snails on a twig and a pair of Asian ladybugs on some Queen Anne's lace. Roadkill for the day was a giant American toad and a wood frog. In bloom were mountain maple, a fleabane, bush honeysuckle, water forget-me-not, yellow sweet clover, and my first flowering raspberry of the year.
6-21-18. Osmore Pond, Groton, VT. 1.8 miles today, 1337.5 miles total.
Categories: blooms, birds, insects
I went for a brisk walk around Osmore Pond this afternoon. After noting how leafy branches and other foliage hang out into the trail, I'm realizing that I need to change my habits in order to avoid ticks. So sad, but tick borne diseases are no fun, and antibiotics are no fun either. On a trail like this one, it is impossible to avoid contact with foliage. I need to stick to wider trails and roads after this. On today's route, I saw a giant cranefly and a red squirrel. I was surprised to find the pink lady's slippers in full bloom. Closer to home, they have gone by, but Groton is a bit cooler than Calais or other parts of Central Vermont. Other blooms included bunchberry, dewberry, mountain woodsorrel, Indian cucumber root, twin flower, and Canada mayflower.
6-22-18. Cross Vermont Trail, Groton, VT. 5.4 miles today, 1342.9 miles total.
Categories: blooms, birds, insects
I spent the morning at Osmore Pond watching a flock of white admiral butterflies near a stone firepit. One would think they were puddling, except they didn't appear to be consuming anything. Was it a lek of some sort? Do butterflies lek? It was fascinating to see how the congregation started with just 1-2 butterflies. When others flew over, they immediately flew down and hung out with the crowd. What were they think? How? I watched for several hours, and counted as many as 34 white admirals at one point, and a tiger swallowtail that kept trying to land but kept getting chased away.
In the afternoon, I hiked up the Cross Vermont trail from the bottom of Ricker Pond. This is a rail-to-trail section that goes through Ricker State Park, so it has a 4'-6' wide paved trail and no high grass to wade through or brush against. With the decreased contact with foliage, I'm assuming that there will be lower chances of encountering ticks on the trail. The trail seemed to be lined with hermit thrushes. I heard at least 10, and photographed several as well. I heard a loon but didn't see one, and I photographed what I think was a marsh wren in a little wetlands inside Ricker State Park. Blooms for the day included a hawkweed, English plantain, Medicago lupulina, yellow pond lily, cow vetch, and common cinquefoil. I stopped to sample some wild strawberries and dwarf raspberries along the way. Roadkill was a garter snake on the bike trail.
have you ever seen a deer tick in groton? I don't think I ever have. Not that i'm saying not to avoid them, since it only takes one...
I actually haven't seen that many ticks this year, though we caught one starting to bite Holly :( They were worst in the spring.
All but one member of my family has had Lyme disease, (and the dog) and I have only ever seen one deer tick ever (and it wasn't on any of us). Just saying.
I read an article that the incidence of Lyme is correlated with the presence of Berberis thunbergii, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, aside from the fact that the deer won't eat it, so it's particularly prevalent in areas with enormous deer populations (as suburban New Jersey). I've also only seen two dog ticks this year, where last year there must have been three or four dozen by now.
6-20-18 Walck Park, Somerville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 294.5 miles total
Categories: weeds, insects, blooming
A quick walk in a small suburban park in between errands and before my daughter Katie's fifth grade graduation. This is mostly mowed with a weedy edge along a brook. Blooming were white clover, fleabane, crownvetch, silky dogwood, deptford pink, healall, honewort, a chickweed, heal all, onion grass, Canada thistle, English plantain, border privet, a little forget me not (scorpiongrass?), a speedwell, carpetweed, and a yellow woodsorrel. On the way home I watched a house sparrow hop across the street right in a crosswalk!
6-21-18. Mountain Ave. Liberty Corner, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 295 miles total.
Categories: weeds, blooming, insects
I managed to squeeze in a walk after Katie's talent show and before Becca's 8th grade graduation (and, as it turns out, just before my son, Carl, came home from work driving across country and was hit turning into our driveway by someone trying to pass him on the right, no one was injured, though. It was a crazy day).
Blooming were scarlet pimpernel, smartweed, white clover, silky dogwood, black medic, hop clover.
6-24-18. Acken Rd., Lyons, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 295.5 miles total
Categories: flowering, insects, weeds
We went to a barbecue at an acquaintance's house and they have carved lovely paths through the overgrown young woods in their backyard. I spent a good 20 minutes wandering through there checking out all their various species. They also had planted items like pawpaw, hazel, yellowwood. And they'd potted up a Japanese angelica tree for some reason. I saw the first enchanter's nightshade blooms of the season, as well.
ugh, yeah we are very much worried about Lyme even when ticks don't bite us. It sucks.
I guess part of why lyme is correlated with barberry is because the main carrier for ticks with lyme is actually mice not deer, and the mice thrive in the dense thorny barberry where predators can't get them. Though like you say it also correlates with deer overpopulation. Basically ecosystem collapse = more disease.
I caught the 2 dog ticks in really tall grass in a woods clearing in Half Moon State Park in Castleton. Both bites got infected, and one severely so. If I hadn't already been on antibiotics, I think I might have been in trouble. I think the dog ticks carry anaplasmosis, among other things. I caught the deer tick from shrubbery over hanging well traveled trails at the North Branch Nature Center in downtown Montpelier. And another deer tick walking through more than ankle high grass in my mother's lawn near Concord, NH. But I found that one before it latched on. Those are the ones I know about, so far. All in one week. Then there was the other dog tick last week that I caught in my front lawn when I bent down to pull a few weeds, just for a moment. I caught that one right away, but now I feel like a tick magnet. And the antibiotics have made me hypersensitive to sun. I really don't want to go through this again, so I have vowed to be more careful. Now I'm in northern Maine, where they say there are no ticks. We'll see, but I'm still going to wear my tick gear.
6-23-18. Downtown Montpelier, VT. 4.6 miles today, 1347.5 miles total.
Categories: blooms, birds, animals
I had to get a tire fixed in Montpelier on my way to NH, so I took a walk downtown while I waited. I was very disappointed to find that the railroad tracks along Stone Cutter's Way have been sprayed with herbicide. My favorite weeds are all dead. Except, now they're starting to come back on the edges. I walked all the way out to Bailey Ave on the other side of the State House, and found a good selection of weeds growing and blooming along the way. Blooms included bishop's weed, large hop clover, birds foot trefoil, English plantain, rabbit clover, chicory, multiflora rose, lady's thumb, some sort of sow thistle, crown vetch, bittersweet nightshade, alsike clover, Galinisoga, a tall mustard, evening primrose, greater celandine, salsify, musk mallow, sulphur cinquefoil, yellow rattle, and the most robust specimen of pineapple weed I have ever seen. Mullein was well budded but not quite blooming. The surprises of the day were some wild parsnip in an urban median between the sidewalk and the street, and some garden red currant in a wasteland of a slope above route 2. Mammals were a grey squirrel and an eastern chipmunk. I shot some house finches, ring-billed gulls, and grackles. The road kill of the day was a flattened baby warbler in Route 2, perhaps a yellow rump.
yeah people don't like that spraying, i should not i am not one of the hyper anti pesticide fanatics, i thin it has its time and place such as judicious removal of knotweed but the rainroad spraying seems an excessive and harmful use to me. But the city can't do anything about it. Railroads don't have to follow most laws, it's the same way they forced through that horrible salt shed right in the LaPlatte wetlands :(
In terms of the ticks I'm definitely not trying to get you to crawl about in the dry grass. I guess I just am in denial since id have to quit my job to stop doing it and that isn't gonna happen. I do wear waders sometimes where they are bad though. I am really hoping that lyme vaccine really does come out in a couple o years. I know it isn't the only disease and even without diseases there are infections, but it's something.
6-24-18. Clough State Park, Dunbarton, NH. and Eagle Hill Institute, Steuben, ME. 3.9 miles today, 1351.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, galls
I took a morning walk near my mother's house this morning before driving to Maine. I intended to go down Mansion Rd, but the sun poked out of the clouds when I got to the top of the hill and I wasn't prepared for it with a sun hat and sun block. So went the other way down into Clough's instead. There weren't many new blooms on this route since I walked it just 2 weeks ago. But I found lamb's quarters in bloom, cow wheat, partridgeberry, winterberry, bittersweet nightshade,, whorled loosestrife, moneywort, and Canada toadflax. For birds, I shot a robin, a purple finch, a hairy woodpecker, a mourning dove, an eastern bluebird (the first one I ever spotted on my own!), a house sparrow, a barn swallow, an American redstart, a northern cardinal, and song sparrows. I also saw a gray squirrel and an eastern chipmunk. My road crosser was a large (to me) land snail (shell more than 1.5" in diameter). Roadkill was a spring creeper.
When I arrived at Eagle Hill, I took a short walk through the campus looking for galls, since I haven't taken a gall hike here before. I came up with some bud galls on Gaylussacia, a leaf gall on blueberries, and the blueberry kidney gall. Also a stem gall on Symphiotrichum. And I found some hostas escaping down a stony hillside in the woods.
6-25-18. Mt. Horeb Rd., Warren, NJ 0.75 miles today, 296.25 miles total
Categories: weeds, insects
I parked at a small town park I've walked many times, but this time walked along the road instead. It has no shoulder, no sidewalks and ditches on each side, with lots of traffic, so it wasn't a pleasant walk, but still interesting. I found about 2 dozen things blooming and had a lovely list up here but then apparently closed the tab without posting it and just don't have it in me to go back through the photos again!
I have only seen cowwheat once or twice and rarely run across huckleberry, never mind galls on that one.
6-26-18. Ridge and Mundy Rds., Warren, NJ. 0.75 miles today 297 miles total.
Categories: insects, birds
I wanted to get a walk in without driving so did this neighborhood cul de sac. I've walked it a zillion times so this time challenged myself to only shoot insects. I got distracted by three birds, two new-to-me cultivated flowers, and some clammy goosefoot that I don't remember seeing here before, but otherwise stuck to arthropods.
I shot four unknown flies, one of which was being eaten by an orchard orbweaver, four long legged flies, a syrphid fly, two sets of Japanese beetles, two fireflies, a lady beetle pupa, three ants, about a dozen of the same type of bumble bee, a caterpillar on hickory, a grass veneer moth, and my favorite: several adult Enchenopa treehoppers on walnut (which I know have not been described to species). So I checked my redbud and found several Enchenopa nymphs. When I looked at the downloaded photos I found an adult as well (a different undescribed species).
I also found galls: on clematis, oak, elm, and hickory, and a cedar rust on bradford pear fruit. My only "roadkill" was a dried up earthworm that must not have managed to find its way off the pavement before the sun got too strong.
6-25-18. Eagle Hill Institute, Steuben ME. 1.6 miles today, 1353 miles total.
Categories: sedges, rushes, blooms
I went for a walk with the 15 other members of my sedges class led by Tony Reznicek. We started off in the famous gravel quarry, which is just down the road from the campus. The quarry is a disturbed site with trash and lots of invasives and some really interesting plants that grow up from the seed bed when given half a chance. We started off with 3 common sedges, Carex communis, Carex echinata, and Carex gynandra. Then they started coming fast and furious, from Carex forenea to Carex tonsa, from Eleocharus obtusa to Scirpus hattorianus. We added some rushes to the mix as well, with Juncus bufonius, Juncus effusus, Juncus tenuis, and more. We also paused to admire the green alder, orange grass (Hypericum gentianoides), and lingongberries, while being scolded all the while by an angry raven.
In the afternoon, we took a short drive up Rt 1 to examine some plants in a highway ditch. There we found Carex nigra, C. stipata, and C. annectens (so confusing!). There was also a rose in bloom that was too thorny for Carolina and some cranberries blooming on the side of the road. We also stopped at a beaver pond to examine C. stricta, C. lasiocarpa, and a small patch of Dulichium arundinaceum. On the way back to campus we got some good looks at a bald eagle on the beach.
i wish i'd taken some of those classes before i had a kid and got super busy :)
Someday your kid will be big like mine are now and you'll be eyeing them again, like me.
You should come and bring Becca and Holly next year, Charlie! They can hike in the woods and walk along the beach while you stoop over your microscope in the classroom...
6-26-18. Petit Manan, Steuben Town Hall, Tunk Stream, Eagle Hill Institute, Steuben, ME. 4 miles today, 1357 miles total.
Categories: sedges, rushes, asphalt cracks and margins plants
Our class started off at a salt marsh on the way to Petit Manan peninsula this morning. Right by the road we found Carex paleacea. A little further in we examined some Bolboschoenus maritimus and Carex mackenziei. Tony also regaled us of some stories of Kenneth MacKenzey, the famous amateur botanist and lawyer for whom C. mackenziei was named. We found some Juncus gerardii, but unfortunately were too late to see the blooms, which Tony assured us are spectacular in pink and yellow. We found some Juncus balticus, and I was suitably impressed with its pretty blooms, so J. gerardii must really be special if Tony says its blooms are even nicer than J. balticus. We also saw some Carex lacustrus and Carex hormathodes. Other plants we saw on the marsh included glasswort (which we tasted--pleasantly sour), Plantago maritima, Moringia alterniflora, and Ruppia maritima. All the while, we were being watched nervously by an osprey who had a nest 500 yards away.
In the afternoon we wandered through a wet sedge meadow near the town hall and recycling station. There we saw C utriculata. Then we made a short detour out to the road surface on Rt 1 and got down on our hands and knees to admire Bulbostylis capillaris, which grows between cracks in the asphalt and stands a full 1-2" high. (My kind of plant!) From there we made our way to an edge between the town hall parking lot and the closely cropped lawn to admire Callitriche palustris, which Tony described as the world's smallest terrestrial flowering plant. GoBotany lists it as aquatic, but there was no water here. Hmmmm. Maybe a dried puddle? We also found Linum radiola, another tiny edge weed, in the same location. We went back into the meadow to see mounds of C. haydenii. Along the way, we admired the Sisyrinchium atlanticum in full bloom and found some Lonicera villosa in fruit.
Next we drove to a stream draining Tunk Lake to see Eleocharis robbinsii and Schoenoplectus subterminalis, those long stringy ribbons that grow in streams. We also found some Eleocharis acicularis along the stream.
In the evening, I needed to stretch my legs, so I went for a short walk around campus. I started down the road beyond the campus, but saw lobster pots in the yards, which I interpreted as signs of possible mean dogs. So I headed back up into the gravel pit, which seemed a safer place to walk. Along the way I found a Viburnum in bloom, winterberry, and a dogwood. I shot some robins and a red squirrel, and the roadkill of the day was a garter snake.
maybe.... someone else said people do that too (maybe it was you though?)
6-27-18. Van Fleet Gardens, Somerville, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 297.75 miles total
Categories: flowering, weeds, insects.
Packing my daughter Molly (19) to go spend the summer working at girl scout sleep away camp but managed to squeeze in a walk at this suburban park. They have some flower beds that face the street, and the street side was all weeded and mulched, but the back side was chock full of interesting weeds. There was another section a block away with more weeds than flowers. I was looking closely at insects while also talking to my daughter on the phone as one of the young men string trimming the shrubbery walked by. He asked what was the matter and it turns out he thought I was with the city and was reporting the weedy state of the flower bed. He offered to weed it for me right there. But the weeds were the part I liked!
6-27-18. Donnell Lake and Tunk Mountain, Franklin, ME. 3.6 miles today, 1360.6 miles total.
Categories: sedges, mountain top plants
Our sedge class spent the day at Tunk Mountain today. We started off in the woods around Donnell Pond, getting acquainted with woodlands sedges. In all, we stopped to examine 15 woodland sedges, including 3 woodland danglers (Carex debilis, C. arctata, and C. gracillima) that look almost identical. But the terminal spike on C. gracillima is bisexual, and C. debilis has long narrow achenes while C. arctata has broader leaves and rosettes. While searching for sedges, we stumbled across Botrychium matricariifolium and Botrychium angustisegmentum. We also admired a stand of Juncus militaris in the water. There wasn't much blooming in the woods besides Diervilla lonicera. But after lunch, we hiked up to the top of Tunk Mountain for some views and fun with mountain-top (not quite alpine) plants. We saw Hudsonia ericoides, Corema conradii, Minuartia groenlandica, Lilium philadelphicum (not in bloom), Lycopodium lagopus and Lycopodium clavatum. Well worth the hike to the top!
Great weed hunt at the gardens yesterday, Sara! I wonder if you would find Bulbostylis capillaris in such places. It seems like a really weedy little thing that likes heat provided by asphalt and gravel.
I probably do, and dismiss it as path rush! I need to work on my sedges and rushes (and mosses, and fungi, and birds, etc.)
6-28-18. Corea Heath and Schoodic Point, ME. 0.7 miles today, 1361.3 miles total.
Categories: sedges, rushes, orchids
Our sedges class started the day at Corea Heath to see some cotton grasses and other bog sedges. But before taking the trail out to the heath, we paused to admire a magnificent orange patch of Bulbostylis capillaris growing through the cracks of the parking lot. The parking lot also had lots of three-toothed cinquefoil. Other parking lot plants ("early successional") included Carex crawfordii, C. tenera, C. tenuis, C. debilis, and Juncus atrocinctus. We also came across a nice stand of C. merritt-fernaldii. On the bog trail we found Calapogon and rose pogonias in abundance, as well as some Arethusas. We saw Luzula multiflora and Juncus greenei. And we found our target species, Eriophorum angustifolium, as well as Eriophorum virginicum. On the way back down the trail, we examined some Carex trisperma and Carex billingsii. We also saw several folks come down the trail carrying binoculars as if they were birders, but the consensus in the group was that they were orchid poachers, trying to sneak around on a wet day when there wouldn't be many visitors to the bog. They did not seem happy to see us on the trail.
From the heath, we walked down the road a short ways to another private patch of heath, but were surprised by a green snake that seemed to perk up a bit after being held in our comparatively warm hands on this chilly drizzly morning. In the second patch of bog we found C. exilis, C. folliculata, C. magellanica, and C. pauciflora, with heads that pop off and travel 1 m when dry, but only about 2 inches this morning in the rain. Then we drove a short ways to a culvert below a bog to compare C. echinata, C. Carex wiegandii, and C. atlantica, all close look-alikes, growing together in a ditch. Then we drove to the Schoodic Point campground several more early successional species, C. adjusta, C. cumulata and C. houghtoniana. We continued on to a salt marsh that grades into bog behind Schoodic Point where we found C. viridula, Cladium marriscoides, and saw lots of orchids, but it was really pouring so we didn't photograph much. By this point, I had started shooting with my underwater camera, which I probably should have been using all day. As we left Schoodic Point, we stopped briefly to see some Carex silicea, Carex hormathodes, and Trichophorum sespitosum in the parking lot and on the rocks. By this point, most of the class was half drowned and approaching hypothermia, and even Tony, the instructor decided the weather was finally wet enough to merit putting on this raincoat, so we headed back to Eagle Hill.
6-29-18. Jonesport Bog, Jonesport, ME. 1.4 miles today, 1362.7 miles total.
Categories: Sedges
Today our sedges class made a visit to Jonesport Bog to look for a few more bog sedges to add to our list for the week. I had visited this bog once before a few years ago with a mosses class. But on that day, it was pouring down rain, like yesterday at Schoodic Point, so we didn't see much or stay long. In contrast, today was sunny and hot. In fact, it was so hot that one person got dazed and confused, separated from the group, and when we finally found him, we had to call an ambulance because he was in such rough shape. Fortunately, with lots of fluids and some serious chilling, he bounced right back. It was a scary episode, though, and a reminder that even adults need to use a buddy system when on a field trip. Out on the bog, we met up with Eriophorum vaginatum and Cladonia verticillata. I also shot a song sparrow. On our way back to campus, we stopped along the Pleasant River to collect some Carex crinida to compare to Carex gynandra. Tony pointed out how the perigynea on Carex crinida look very full and orderly, while on C. gynandra that look a bit unkempt. So that's one way to tell them apart, with practice. We made one final stop in downtown Millbridge by the diner that was closed down for drug dealing to see C. waponahkikensis, which is found in only 2 adjacent counties in Maine and also just over the border in New Brunswick.
6-30-18. Border Trail, Eagle Hill Institute, Steuben ME, and Great Wass Island, ME. 5.8 miles today, 1368.5 miles total.
Categories: sedges, seashells, birds, blooms
Although our sedge course officially ended last night, I decided to stay over at the Institute for an extra day in order to spend a little time on the coast. I took a brief walk down the border trail on campus in the morning to look for birds and seashells on the beach. I found some snail shells and seagulls (ring-bills, I think), and a jaw bone of what I thought might be a dolphin. But then I found some big leg bones--parts of a deer skeleton washed up the beach. I also found some American beach grass and a lobster claw.
When I got back from the beach, I headed out to Great Wass Island with 2 classmates. We botanized the entire loop trail across Great Wass, bounding over several miles of rocky coast, and then back, 4.5 miles in all. It was great fun, with all 3 of us searching for sedges to review and trying to find any unfamiliar plants. As a team, and with a little help from Newcomb's, we were able to identify all the vascular plants, although some of the lichens had us stumped. Highlights included Juniperus horizontalis, seaside plantain, seaside orach, sea lavender, and Hordeum jubatum.
6-28-18 Black Brook Park, Kennelworth, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 298 miles total
I had 10 minutes to walk between a trip to Walmart and a doctor's appointment, so I stopped at this little pond. The tiny brook was so overgrown with plants you could only tell there was water there from the wetland plants. There were a lot of insects. When I got to the pond itself, though, every bit of vegetation other than lawn had been weed whacked away. There was a turtle , though, and a far away egret.
6-28-18 Swartswood Lake Park, Swartswood, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 298.75 miles total.
I took Becca (14) and Katie (11) to this guarded lake beach on the way to drop Molly (19) off for her summer job as a sleep away camp counselor. First Katie and I collected pond weeds (and milfoil and coontail) and then I checked the weeds in the neglected flower beds. No real surprises, but it was a lovely evening to be out at a state park, and we did eventually meet up with Molly (who doesn't always notice when her GPS tells her to turn) and got her settled in at camp.
6-28-18 Camp Lou Henry Hoover, Middleville, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 299.5 miles total.
I walked slowly behind the girls, photographing and IDing most of the plants on the way to Molly's tent. She was able to ID a number of them as well. Everyone's favorite was the nipplewort.
Two of Molly's friends came to see her off as well. It was hot and humid and the mosquitoes were bad, and these were by no means "outdoors people". The consensus was she's crazy to spend the summer there. But I was a bit jealous.
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