August 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
8-1-18. Milford Beach, Delaware Water Gap National Park, Milford, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 322.75 miles total
My youngest (Katie, 11) and I drove her older sister's (Becca, 14) luggage up to camp (they insist it arrive at least 2 days ahead; we could have paid them $250 to ship it, but elected to drive the 2.5 hour each way ourselves, instead). Becca stayed home, but Katie and I had an adventure, and our first stop with walking was here, on the banks of the Delaware River. Unfortunately it was incredibly muggy and the mosquitoes were fierce, so we didn't last long at all. But, there was an interesting mushroom, dodder, pale smartweed, a very tame rabbit, a mustard I don't know, false solomon's seal, a meadow rue, and a garter snake. It was so humid my lens fogged up.
8-1-18. Shohola Falls, Shohola, PA. 0.5 miles today, 323.25 miles total
Category: flowering
Our next stop was these large falls (50 feet total, in steps) which were extremely full, with all the rain we've been getting. It rained this afternoon, too, and the shale-y path was wet, slippery and scary. We were the only ones there, and at one point I got distracted by plants, looked up, and couldn't see my daughter anywhere. It was very loud and there was no way to call for her, either. I pictured her slipping to her death but eventually found her up at the top of the falls, perfectly safe. On the way out we passed a family with about 6 little children, and I was very glad not to be with them.
But there were a lot of plants to be distracted by. Purple flowering raspberry, which I haven't seen in years. White snakeroot about to flower, hemp nettle, Canada wild lettuce, helleborine, lots of mosses and lichens, and a nice orbweaver.
8-1-18. Roebling Bridge, Lackawaxon, NY. 0.25 mile today, 323.5 miles total
categories: blooming, invertebrates
We stopped by this former aqueduct, now single-lane bridge across the Delaware and walked halfway across, checking out the plants on the way. Blooming were poke, hedge bindweed, wood sorrel, bird's foot trefoil, joe pye weed, and red clover. We also saw fall webworms, a nice crab spider, and a tiger beefly
8-1-18. Kittatiny Point Visitor's Center, Delaware Water Gap National Park, Columbia, NJ. 0,5 miles today, 324 miles total
Categories: plants, insects
Last stop of the day was the visitor's center. Walked down the stairs to the Delaware River itself. My daughter spent a good 20 minutes skipping stones, so I got to photograph pretty much every plant on the river shore (the vast majority of which was Japanese knotweed, mugwort, and a smartweed. Lots of Japanese hops and clotbur, too. No real surprises, though I haven't IDed the smartweed, and there was a mustard as well. And a tiny snail.
8-1-18. Tucker Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1475.5 miles total.
Categories: roadkill
I took a brisk walk up Tucker Rd this morning, starting from the Chickering Bog parking lot. The Bog is finally officially open again as of today, and a friend tells me that the goshawks are gone, so I need to make a visit to the Bog. Meanwhile...this morning I collected road kill along Tucker Rd. I found a Viceroy butterfly, a frog, a common whitetail, and a red-bellied snake. I also found another pile of fresh coyote scat in the middle of the road. I wonder if it's the same coyote that left the pile I found the other day, or if it's just the habit amongst local coyotes to crap on the road. I found a volunteer sunflower in bloom, highbush cranberries starting to ripen, and a new patch of Phragmites.
Your episode of losing track of your daughter near the waterfall sounds scary. Yikes! Glad it all worked out OK! And flowering raspberries...it's amazing to hear how uncommon they are where you are. That's one of our most common roadside plants here. I've been pointing them out to my hiking friends, and we all stop to enjoy the berries.
8-2-18. Kent Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1478.5 miles total.
Categories: blooms, invasives, birds, road kill
I took a walk up Kent Hill Rd early this morning. I'm glad I didn't head out any later than I did--even at 6:30 AM traffic was heavy and fast with lots of pickup trucks. Even though I was walking on the edge of the road facing traffic, one truck nearly hit me--traveling fast on the wrong side of the road. I don't think it was on purpose. The guy was probably just asleep at the wheel and late for work. Despite the traffic, I saw lots (at least 4) other pedestrians on the road today. Maple Corner, the name of this neighborhood in Calais, is a place densely populated with road walkers. Blooming today were parasol whitetop, Joe pye weed, bog goldenrod, Clematis and Canada thistle, also the first turtlehead of the year for me. I also found lots of roadside invasives on this walk that I don't remember from previous strolls along Kent Hill, including Japanese knotweed, sorbaria, and a new patch of Phragmites, plus a boat-load of Valerian. Sorbaria seems to be becoming a more common invasive along the roads that I walk, both in Vermont and New Hampshire. I'm starting to see it everywhere, and it seems quite aggressive. It spreads deep into the woods. I also saw the same weird white flower that I saw last week on another road in Calais. It has a tufty terminal white spike of flowers and leaves that look Rubus-like, but no thorns. Another potential invasive, by the looks. Birds today included robins and goldfinches, and a flock of white ducks with a single muscovy duck free-ranging on the Kent Museum land. Road kill was a garter snake, a phoebe, and a large sphinx moth caterpillar.
8-3-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1481.6 miles total.
Categories: road kill
I went out for a brisk walk along Pekin Brook Rd this morning. This was my old running route which I've run hundreds of times, so I didn't expect to see much new for plants. About 1/2 mile into my walk, I saw a yearling bear cross the road in front of me, about 25 yards ahead. I slowed my pace to allow it to get safely into the woods, and I contemplated whether it would be safe to look for tracks at the side of the road since I didn't get a photo with my little point and shoot camera. Just then, I heard growling behind me, turned and saw more black fur in the bushes at the side of the road--another bear, the momma! Cub in front, momma behind, a steel highway barrier with a very steep bushy embankment down to the stream on the side of the road away from the bears. I decided the momma really didn't want me around so I ran forward, in the direction of the cub, but on the opposite side of the road where it had run into the woods. Singing loudly. Fortunately, it didn't follow. But I guess running was entirely the wrong thing to do since bears can run much faster than people. Instead, I should have talked loudly, raised my big stick (which I didn't have), and backed off (which would have been extremely difficult, given the highway barrier, steep embankment, and stream). Despite my error in running, I got away. But a half mile away, I encountered another bear beside the road. Fortunately, that one ran off. After that, I began talking very loudly to myself in hopes of scaring away any more bears before I approached. All the loud talking woke up all the dogs in the neighborhood, dogs that I never knew were there. But for once, I was happy to hear dogs barking. I also scared up a blue heron out of the stream that I wouldn't have seen, and got a beaver to flap its tail at me. Meanwhile, I collected several squished frogs and a dead moth.
Wow! May I never have a walk quite that eventful! I've definitely talked loudly to myself on hikes to scare off critters, but not so urgently as this.
The Girl Scout camp Molly works at has "repeat after me bear rules". They make everyone memorize and recite them: "These are the repeat after me bear rules: If I see a bear I will not run away. I will sing a loud song. I will tell my counselor. I will not comb its hair. I will not paint its toenails. This ends the repeat after me bear rules." So, excellent job not engaging in bear grooming. (Molly finally saw her first bear in 12 years last summer. I've only ever seen one once)
8-4-18. East County Park, Warren, NJ. 1.0 miles today, 325 miles total
Categories: flowering, fungi, insects
There are new dog parks at this relatively new county park, so I figured I'd walk a few paths I hadn't yet. We got torrential rain for the past several days and the first thing I spotted was one of the largest "mushroom shaped" mushrooms (in otherwords with a stem and a cap) I've ever seen. It was about 6 or 8 inches across.
Goldenrod is blooming, as is Queen Anne's lace, so there was quite the bug selection, including a huge spider wasp with curly yellow antennae. Also blooming were wild basil, swamp milkweed, and Indian tobacco, red and white clovers, jewelweed, fleabane, bedstraw, crown vetch, trefoil, burdock, healall, thistle, pinks, boneset, nightshade, smartweed, and vervain. Back at home there was an interesting new (to me) bolete in clusters in the grass under an oak tree.
8-4-18. Old Hogback Mountain Rd, Marlboro, VT. 2 miles today, 1483.6 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, fungi, blooms, invasives, sedges and rushes, fruits
I drove down to Hogback Mountain outside of Marlboro, VT to join the Vermont Entomological Society field trip this afternoon. Unfortunately, I was the only one who showed up at the specified time. Maybe I never found the right place, but it seemed to be the place advertised in the flier. Perhaps the walk was called off at the last minute due to rain and I never got the memo. After driving 2.5 hours to get there, I decided to do the walk anyway. I started by checking for pollinators in the Queen Anne’s lace and other flowers around the parking lot. I found a tiger swallowtail, some bee mimics, spiders, grasshoppers, goldenrod galls, wasps, honeybees, willow leaf galls, a willow beetle, an inch worm on an evening primrose, and ichneumon wasps. I found common eyebright in bloom, also Indian pipes, a mustard, a yellow centaureum-like flower, big-leaved asters, nipplewort, cudweed, helleborine, turtlehead, and fringed loosestrife. Fruiting were moosewood, hobblebush, choke cherries, and hawthorn. I also found plenty of fungi fruiting, including boletes, wax caps, earth tongues, and some russulas. The road (which wasn’t navigable by vehicle due to deep gullies), had some hogweed along the margins, and one tiny spot of Japanese knotweed. A few branches of the knotweed had broken off and were 50 feet downhill from the main patch. One of the fragments of the broken branch was starting to sprout a leaf. And so it begins.
8-5-18. Mansion Rd, Dunbarton NH. 2.1 miles today, 1484.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, road kill, fungi
I took a stroll up Mansion Rd this morning before starting a long car ride with my mother. I chased quite a few birds with my camera, but only caught up with some robins, a titmouse, and some chipping sparrows. Indian pipes were in bloom, and there were lots of boletes and Lactarius mushrooms along the road margins. Road kill today were some frogs and red efts.
8-6-18. Concord Pond Rd, Milton ME. 2.4 miles today, 1487.1 miles total.
Categories: fruits, woody plants, blooms, fungi
This morning I walked along the road that runs past the family camp. The camp is owned and used by my aunts and uncles, and I haven’t spent much time here since the early 1970s, so I’ve never inventoried the plants here before. In bloom today were buttonbush, parasol whitetop, virgin’s bower, hemp nettle, cattails, Allegheny monkeyflower, jewelweed, Joe Pye weed, fireweed, selfheal, lady’s thumb, nipplewort, an unfamiliar goldenrod with wide leaves, rattlesnake root, pearly everlasting, silverrod, , tear thumb, wild lettuce, tansy, helleborine, large-leaved aster, ox-eye daisy, cudweed, Oxalis, meadowsweet, flat-topped goldenrod. Budding were rough-leaved goldenrod and whorled wood aster. I found red trillium in fruit, also checkerberry, blue bead lily, winterberry, hobblebush, steeplebush, Canada mayflower, chokecherry, apples, Canada yew, false Solomon’s seal, blackberries (very sweet), maple-leaved viburnum, common plantain, wild sarsaparilla, lowbush blueberries, and checkerberries (sweet and juicy). Other woody plants that I noted included Labrador tea, red oak, moosewood, hemlock, hazelnut, multiflora rose, beech, yellow birch, white birch, white pine, sugar maple, red maple, mountain ash, balsam fir, witch hazel, and leatherleaf. Today’s roadkill was an eastern garter snake (very fresh), and a redbelly snake. After returning to the cabin, I “collected” dragonflies along the shore of the pond, and found violet dancers, a spreadwing, a slaty skimmer, some pennants, and a bluet.
8-7-18. Pinnacle Rd, Canaan ME. 2.8 miles today, 1489.9 miles total.
Categories: woody plants, invasives, birds, insects
I went for a walk this morning in the area around the hotel near “downtown” Canaan where I was staying with my mother. The first road I headed down seemed rather busy, so I went off on a side road, Pinnacle Rd, which had no traffic and soon turned to dirt. However, it did have brand new ditches, so the roadside weed species were rather minimal. Still, I noted quite a variety of invasives along the road, including Japanese knotweed, wild parsnip, comfrey, purple loosestrife, lily of the valley, honeysuckle, tansy, burdock, horseweed, evening primrose, and musk mallow. Other woody plants included elm, black locust, red oak, hemlock, white ash, beech, arrowwood, and staghorn sumac. Fruiting today were poison ivy, dogbane, and white baneberry. I caught Japanese beetles mating, Asian ladybugs mating, a grape stem gall, and a box elder bug. At one point I actually encountered a fellow walker wearing binoculars—I think about the first time ever on a road walk. He confirmed that I had indeed heard hermit thrushes and a scarlet tanager in the woods, even though eBird said they were unreported in the area. I asked him if he did eBird and he said he didn’t bother with it. It’s so hard for me to imagine getting up early and going birding on a regular basis, yet not sharing my observations with anyone, somewhat selfish. On the other hand, the guy must clearly be self-motivated and get a lot of enjoyment from simply watching the birds by himself. The road kill of the day was a vertebrate of indeterminable species. The scat of the day was fox (I think).
8-8-18. Grapevine Rd, Dunbarton NH. 2.9 miles today, 1492.8 miles total.
Categories: invasives, fruits, blooms, woody plants, road kill, fungi
This morning I drove up to the blueberry patch along the powerlines in Dunbarton, but instead of walking the powerlines, I stayed along the road. I am still rather shy of touching any foliage, trying to stay away from ticks. The area was quite scenic (and nearby Tenney Hill Rd, which I walked, was even marked “Scenic Route”), but it was quite populated with invasives. I found Japanese knotweed, Russian olive, autumn olive, purple loosestrife, burning bush, Japanese barberry, lily of the valley, multiflora rose, , black swallowwort, and Oriental bittersweet. In fruit today were bristly sarsaparilla, poison ivy, grapes, Indian pipes, and black elder. Blooming were big-leaved aster, a mystery yellow flower that I don't ever recall seeing before, ground nut, and a tick trefoil. Budding were heart-leaved aster and pokeweed. Other woody plants included sweetfern, common juniper, American chestnuts (lots of re-sprouting saplings), hemlock, shagbark hickory, bur oak, black birch, walnut, and smooth sumac. It’s been wet here, so I also had good luck with fungi, and found boletes, a very large yellow slime mold, some parasitic fungi, including one with long fur, amanitas, puffballs, and russulas. Roadkill included some unidentifiable rodents, a red eft, a grasshopper, a frog, and a toad. The scat of the day was from a bear (uh oh!) who had been feasting on blueberries.
I love the idea of a scat of the day. Considering I can only ID deer, dog, fox (probably) and generic caterpillar and bird, I'd not be much use at it, though.
August is insanely busy here, and I'm over two months behind in posting photos, but will try to catch up with walk descriptions, at least, if this morning's rescue squad duty is fairy quiet.
8-5-18. Bowcraft and Ponderosa Park, Scotch Plains, NJ. 2.0 miles today, 327 miles total.
Categories: weeds, blooming, insects
I took Katie (11) on an "adventure" today, stopping first at the little, local amusement park. This place was old and falling apart when I was a child, and still their idea of lanscaping is occasionally breaking out the string-trimmer, which makes it a great place for weeds. I did go on some (actually terrifying) rides with my daughter, but while walking between and waiting for her found a lot. It was like a who's who of invasive species. Very little was blooming, only knotgrass, knotweed, carpetweed, two spurges, smartweed, jewelweed and white clover. And fruiting were cleavers, a sedge, and foxtail grass. I was surprised to see ivy-leaved morning glory, teasel, and field bindweed, three that are at least somewhat less common in the weed department. I also found a beetle, two wasps, a sweat bee, and two ants.
Later we went to a huge playground that also has fountains (a sprayground) in the middle of a park surrounded by woods and a meadow. It was amazingly hot and sunny but I put on my hat and mostly stuck to the shade and took photos while she played. Tons of things were blooming here: plantain, goldenrod, queen Anne's lace, pilewort, coneflower, two thistles, nightshade, trefoil, mercury, chicory, two smartweeds, hydrangea, clover, horseweed, vervain, jewelweed, healall, fleabane, dogbane, poke, burdock, lobelia, dayflower, hawkweed, two mulleins, basil, bedstraw. Critter-wise I saw house sparrows and a catbird, a hairstreak, a wasp, three kinds of bees, two types of swallowtail, a weevil, two kinds of skipper, aphids, mating Japanese beetles, an orbweaver, a fly, a true bug, an ant, and a hornet. Galls were thistle stem, elm pouch, and goldenrod bunch.
Blackberries were in fruit and were just as disappointing as always. I should head up to Maine and try the ones there!
On my virtual walk, I've arrived at my parents' house. Now I will turn myself northward and head up to visit you in Calais! It's roughly 140 miles, so at mile 467 I'll be there.
8-6-18. Island Beach State Park, Seaside Park, NJ and Castle Park, Toms River, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 328 miles total.
Categories: weeds, blooming, shells
Monday I took Katie to the beach (her sister Becca is at camp for two weeks, and both my oldest kids are working, so this was our week for adventures). On the way home we also stopped at a large playground.
At the beach I didn't want to get sand in my camera so only took photos by the snack bar. I got herring and laughing gulls, sea rocket, seaside goldenrod, yucca, Virginia creeper, spotted knapweed, carpetweed, spurge, beach pea, bayberry, beach plum, purslane, poke, groundsel, and something with pointed leaves in rosettes that I haven't figured out yet.
The playground was just standard parking lot weeds. Prolifically fruiting thicket creeper, and some silver cinquefoil were about as interesting as it got.
8-8-18. Somerset County 4-H Fair, Bradley Gardens, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 328.75 miles total
Categories: weeds
We headed to the county fair this afternoon. I parked near the river, so got some photos of the weeds along the bank (poison hemlock, reed canary grass, black elder, and wingstem), which I've not visited before. Then a few shots of weeds in the fairgrounds themselves, but it was mostly mowed lawn.
In the evening we stopped by a condo our friends own as a rental, to see if it might suit our son, Carl (22). My favorite part was the liverworts in the mulch out front. I never see garden liverworts, and these were even fruiting.
I can't wait for the liverwort photos--Marchantia polymorpha by any chance? I searched very hard for it during the Montpelier Bioblitz but with no luck. I know where a good patch is, but it is on private land and I didn't have permission to observe it for the Bioblitz.
I do think M. polymorpha, not that I know much of anything about liverworts, but it's likely to be a long wait with my backlog. And I'm about to spend three days doing pretty much nothing but taking photos in the Pine Barrens in south Jersey.
8-9-18. Sparrow Farm Rd, East Montpelier, VT. 1.4 miles today, 1494.2 miles total.
Categories: fruits, birds, insects
I skipped my early morning walk this morning because it was raining. Fortunately, by 10 AM it had cleared off enough so that I could go walking closer to Montpelier with 2 friends. We started on North St, then headed down Sparrow Farm Rd for a short out-and-back. My friends are great insect fans, so we paused to admire every insect we could find along the way, including a yellow-dusted cream moth, a white fuzzy caterpillar (hickory tussock?), a wasp stinging a fly (at first we thought it was 2 wasps procreating), a common carpet moth, a Japanese beetle, a bundle of earwigs in a milkweed, Mecoptera, a cricket, some grape stem gall, some harvestman (with mites), a white-spotted sable moth, a leaf hopper, an ichneumon wasp, a fuzzy black caterpillar, a basswood leaf gall, Harris’ checkerspot, several monarchs, and a giant swallowtail. We also saw a turkey vulture, a crow, a raven, and a family of Canada geese from a very long distance across a field. Fruiting today were red osier dogwood, Virginia creeper, honey locust, and bishop’s weed.
8-10-18. Haggett Rd, East Montpelier, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1497.3 miles total.
Categories: Road kill, birds
This morning I drove to a safer (I hope) walking neighborhood for a brisk walk. I chose Haggett Rd from Adamant since I haven’t walked it much. Later in the day it’s rather busy, but before 7 AM I figured it would be OK. The first animals I encountered was a flock of 30 geese meandering back and forth across the road. One had its eye on me and was willing me not to approach. Then a sheriff’s car drove past and the geese moved back from the road a little so I was able to slip on by. My other bird of the morning was a mourning dove in a dead pine tree. Road kill was plentiful this morning, with lots of dead frogs, at least one dead toad, a dead snake, a mouse of some sort, and a flattened red squirrel.
8-11-18. Singleton Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1500.3 miles total.
Categories: invasives, birds, blooms
This morning I drove to Calais Town Hall and took a leisurely walk up Singleton Rd. Quite a few invasives caught my attention this morning, including Japanese knotweed, purple loosestrife, tansy, Japanese barberry and comfrey. I found turtlehead and swamp aster in bloom and saw some blue jays, a flock of gold finches and a great blue heron. I also nibbled on quite a few thimbleberries along the route. Road kill today were a garter snake and another snake (redbelly or something brown?).
8-12-18. Tree Farm Campground, Springfield, VT. 2.3 miles today, 1502.6 miles total.
Categories: fruits, sedges, fungi, blooms
This morning I took a walk around the trails in Tree Farm Campground where my husband and I stayed last night. Beyond the campsites is an area that has seen recent logging. After my walk, the campground owner told me that the land is in the “Current Use” program and is being managed as ruffed grouse habitat. The logged area seemed to be selectively cut and had an interesting collection of weeds, including pokeweed, Cyperus esculentus, and Cyperus lupulinus. Other sedges were Scirpus hattorianus and Carex lurida. After checking out the logging area, I followed the marked hiking trail up into the woods. Between the early hour and the overcast skies, once I got into the woods it was just about pitch dark. I found many, many mushrooms in the woods, and no doubt would have found a lot more if there had just been a little more light. Time to start shifting my schedule a bit. My morning walks are too early now for taking photos.
Congratulations on making it up to your parents' house! And now, on to Vermont! Way to go!
8-9-18 Stony Lake, Sandyston, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 329.25 miles total
Categories: weeds, fungi, wetland plants
Katie and I had another day of adventuring. First we dropped off a replacement cell phone for Molly at camp (hers died) then we headed to an amusement park in PA, but on the way, we stopped in and checked out Stokes State Park. (I have an annual pass to the state parks, so I'm aiming to visit all the state parks that charge an entrance fee this summer). This lake used to have a swimming beach, but it must have been many years ago as it's all overgrown at the waterline. We were pleased to find the bathrooms still operational, though. The big find for me on this visit were my first ever bladderworts. I had only seen photos and illustrations before and never realized how tiny they are! There were also water shields, which I don't see often, with leaf miners, too. There were oval leaved pondweeds (forget about IDing those) and several interesting fungi.
8-9-18 Costa's Family Fun Park, Hawley, PA. 0.75 miles today, 330 miles total
Categories: weeds, insects
The main point of our adventure as far as Katie was concerned was Costa's, a very small amusement park. While she was on the rides (and while we played minigolf) I took photos of all the weeds and a few insects. There was a yellow mustard I'm not sure about, and a nice shot of a twelve-spotted skimmer (I think). Pearly everlasting and bracken were both exciting, as I rarely see them.
8-9-18. High Point State Park, Wantage, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 330.25 miles total
Categories: blooming, weeds
Our last stop on our adventure was the monument on High Point (the highest point in the state). You can drive almost right up to it. It's as far north as you can get (and obviously as high up, but only 1,800 feet), and had some unusual plants: Bear Oak, which is generally a pine barrens tree in NJ, three-leaved cinquefoil, hoary alyssum, and Sedum acre, none of which are at all familiar for me (and two were new species for me). Very exciting. Also interesting how much worse my photos are when I have someone with me (the start of our walk) compared to when I'm alone (Katie went back to the car early).
8-13-18. Sodom Pond Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1505.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, roadkill
I took a brisk walk out Sodom Pond Rd this morning. It was overcast, but no rain. I found plenty of dead herps on the road, including frogs, toads, and red efts. I found my first blooming Bidens of the year, and a monkeyflower that I've never found on this road before. Also some turtleheads. I'm a big fan of turtleheads. Birds included >30 mallards on the pond, 2 wood ducks, and a Canada goose flyover.
8-14-18. Emslie Rd, Calais, VT 3.1 miles today, 1508.7 miles total.
Categories: road crossers, fungi, fruit
I drove to the town offices this morning to park in their lot and walk from there up Emslie Rd. But I had forgotten that it was voting day and the polls had been moved to the town offices due to construction on town hall. I was the first person to park in the lot. I hoped I would get back before folks started showing up to vote since there are only about 6 parking spaces in the lot. By the time I got back to the lot, the spaces were full, but I don't think my car was too much of a problem since no one was parked on the street yet. The choice of walking location for the day sure made it easy to get my voting done before breakfast. On Emslie Rd I watched for fruits, road crossers and fungi. I saw several red efts (all living), a toad (dead), a small brown caterpillar, and the tracks of a white-tailed deer. I found helleborine and spikenard in fruit. And I found several fungi, including a Russula and a tiny parasol moss fungus.
8-15-18. North Calais, VT & Hill St, Montpelier, VT. 5 miles today, 1513.7 miles total.
Categories: fungi, roadkill, insects
Early this morning I took a brisk walk making a loop around North Calais. I was watching for fungi but only found one, a gilled mushroom with very brown gills. I also found some scat, which I think is red fox, but I don’t really know scat well enough to tell. Mostly, though, I found lots and lots of dead frogs. And some flattened herps that were probably frogs or toads but were too flat to tell. And a dead chipmunk.
Later in the morning I met 2 friends for what is becoming our weekly insect hunt in Montpelier. This morning we started at the Hunger Mt Coop, crossed the Winooski River, then walked about 1 mile up Hill St, all the while searching for insects hiding under leaves or crawling across the road. Just before our walk, there had been a big downpour, so initially we were frustrated at having few bugs to chase. By the end of the walk, the sun had come out in earnest, and we started having better luck. While we were still along the bike path by the coop I was delighted to find some tufts of Bulbostylis capillaries growing up through the cracks of the asphalt—the first I’ve found in Vermont after being introduced to it at moss camp in Maine. On our bug walk we found jewelweed and grape stem galls, several spiders including one carrying a bright red egg sack, some bees, wasps, and bumblebees, an eastern forktail damselfly and a wandering glider dragonfly, and a grasshopper. We found several Arion slugs and a bright red caterpillar, as well as dozens of inch long yellowish worms. Road kill for this walk were a northern short-tailed shrew, a mouse, and a dragonfly.
8-16-18. Adamant Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1516.7 miles total.
Categories: road kill, botanical surprises, birds
This morning I started in downtown Adamant and walked up Adamant Rd towards Fowler Rd. Along the way I found dozens of dead frogs in the road, and several live red efts, including a few very tiny ones. I caught a juvenile robin in a tree and a juvenile cardinal as well. While many young animals are “cute”, young birds at the fledgling age simply aren’t that attractive, except in perhaps a rumpled kind of way. Botanical surprises for today were several ladies’ tresses in several locations, a butternut tree I had never noticed before, and some a clump of pinesap.
8-17-18. Martin Rd, Calais VT. 3.1 miles today, 1519.8 miles total.
Categories: road kill, birds
This morning I went for a brisk walk along Martin Rd from downtown Adamant to County Rd. I found plenty of dead herps to photograph, including frogs and toads, a red eft, and a large redbelly snake. The geese were thick in downtown Adamant, at least 24 along the road, but they didn’t give me any trouble. I also saw quite a few mourning doves and what I think were some starlings on some electrical wires.
So many dead frogs! I very rarely find small vertebrates dead on the road. Large (deer, squirrel, groundhog, opossum) are much more common here. I wonder if we just have efficient predators carrying the carcasses away, or massively fewer small animals. Probably both. Certainly not more careful or fewer drivers!
I'd not realized jewelweed had galls, now I will need to check it when I see it.
8-12-18. White Lake, Hardwick, NJ. 1.75 miles today, 332 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, unusual
I dropped Katie off at camp, then stopped several places to take photos on the way home. First was White Lake, which I'd visited once before and has a wonderful variety of North Jersey plants. But first I stopped in the porta potty, where there was a small hole by the floor with a very fat army worm wandering in. In the wildflower meadow there was a ton of Queen Anne's lace, nearly every one of which had ants on it. And a lot of aphid-infested goldenrod (not yet blooming). Wild bergamot was blooming, and brown knapweed (which I rarely see). There were many soldier beetles, bumble bees, and meadow katydids, and a few dragonflies. Then I found a four-leaved clover, a red clover, which I've never seen do that before.
I was surprised to find a painted turtle crossing the path, quite a distance from the lake. My mother had had one by their home in NH the week before, and that's even farther from the water. I had not realized they wandered. Then last night a baby snapping turtle tried to walk into the grocery store here in town, and I arrived just as everyone was trying to decide what to do with it (I suggested the nearby overgrown drainage ditch).
There was yellow bedstraw (which I'd never seen before), butterfly weed, shrubby cinquefoil (new for me), and what was probably Kalm's lobelia (also new to me). New York ironweed and Joe Pye weeds were blooming as well. There was a yellow spike of a goldenrod that I suspect is downy goldenrod (new for me if true) and panicled tick trefoil was blooming as well.
Then I moved into the woods and found hackberry stem galls, pointed leaved and naked flowered tick trefoils, bloodroot, cow wheat, wild basil, lopseed, an Osmorhiza, round lobed hepatica, cypress spurge, moonseed, wild ginger, sanicle, ebony spleenwort, richweed, wild yam, a grape fern (very unusual for me), a very pale and small Joe Pye, a spider wasp dragging a large spider, northern maidenhair fern, and white baneberry (which I very rarely see).
Back out in the field, near the shore was Culver's root (I think, which I've never seen before), the first flat-topped goldenrod of the year (and the first spindle gall on it), interesting round leaf galls on a willow, a big fat tachinid fly on boneset, and a queen anne's look alike (but small with sort of parnip-y leaves) that I haven't figured out (might be Berula).
So much great stuff!
8-12-18 Allamuchy Freight House, Hacketstown and Schooley's Mountain Park, Long Valley, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 332.25 miles total
Categories: weeds
I stopped at a historic railroad stop, but ignored the building and looked at the weeds around it. There was parsnip and ground cherry and a couple of tree crickets, not much else of note until the end where I found prickly ash (in fruit), which I'd never seen before. Very pretty plant.
Next was a county park with an old, closed swimming beach on a lake. Rather run down. I filled my data card here (as there were all the photos from the previous walk as well) but luckily had another on hand. There was not much surprising here, though a woody plant on the beach threw me, but I suspect it was honey locust.
8-12-18. Cooper's Grist Mill, Chester, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 333 miles total.
Categories: blooming, insects.
This grist mill had very interesting grounds in lots of layers and with a tunnel under the main road. Thee was herb Robert which I don't often see, and the first blooming Tyrol knapweed of the year, and there was culvert root, for my second time ever (and second time today).
8-13-18. Historic Smithville, Mount Holly, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 334 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, fungi, new
All three girls were at camp, and Carl and my husband, Chuck were working, so I rented a cabin in the pine barrens all for myself for two nights. This was the first stop on the way down there. Outer Coastal Plain, not really the Barrens yet, but definitely South Jersey. I'd meant to walk on the "floating bridge" but it was closed (and would not have been as interesting as what I did instead). So I walked along the paths by the lake and old mill. Here I found lots of familiar plants, a fungus I don't know (which is not saying much), and two new to me plants: a four o'clock called Marvel of Peru, and an interesting flatsedge, Cyperus iria.
8-13-18 Atsion Lake, Warton State Forest, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 334.5 miles total
Categories: flowering, fungi, insects, new to me
This was my first stop in the actual Pine Barrens. It's a state park with a swimming beach on a lake, and at first seemed rather weedy and run-down, but I found a new fungus, a new to me insect, and 8 plants: sensitive pea (the first record in NJ, I thought it was baby mimosa trees until I saw the blooms), white beak-sedge (Rhychospora is a new genus for me), post oak, gallberry, Atlantic white cedar, sweetbay magnolia in fruit, cross leaved milkwort, and a spatulate leaved sundew, though I shouldn't count the latter, as I didn't notice it until I processed my pictures (despite specifically looking for carnivorous plants while I was down there).
8-13-18. Batso Village, Wharton State Forest, NJ. 2.25 miles today, 336.75 miles total
Categories: flowering, fungi, insects, new to me.
This was a preserved village in the Wharton Forest (which has the reputation for having the most rare plants in the state). I asked around for a good trail to walk for plants and everyone who worked there said they knew next to nothing about botany. But I finally thought to ask for a fairly short trail that was wet, and that worked. I headed for but did not make it to Tom's Pond (bog). But nevertheless, I found 13 plants I'd never photographed before: brown beak-rush, Canada St. John's wort, Virginia meadow beauty (beautiful and everywhere), stalked water hoarhound (the first record for the state), pine barrens bedstraw (first record for the state), Nuttal's lobelia, lance-leaved rose gentian, ten-angled pipewort, veilwort (a liverwort), St. Peter's wort (first in the state, if I'm right), cranberry, Carolina redroot, and pine barrens golden heather. There were also 7 kinds of fungi that I didn't recognize. So much fun.
8-13-18 Pakim Pond, Brendan Byrne State Forest, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 338 miles total
Categories: blooming, fungi, insects, new to me.
The little cabin I rented was in Brendan Byrne on Pakim Pond. I had my own, tiny, private dock. There's a nature trail around the pond and I walked that in the evening, dodging joggers and a dog, the most people I'd seen all day (it had been a little rainy). Here there were thread leaved sundew, purple pitcher plants, variegated pond lily, and engleman's arrowhead, none of which I'd seen in the wild before, and 10 kinds of fungus (and a nasty horsefly). Such a wonderful place to spend a couple of nights.
All in all in one day I'd walked 5 miles (huge for me) and seen 27 species of plants (plus some blueberries I can't key out) that I'd never seen before, and 19 fungi I don't recognize. I also posted 439 observations to iNat, my biggest day ever. So cool.
8-14-18. Thundergust Lake, Parvin State Park, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 338.75 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, fungi, unusual
Before I left the cabin in the morning I found a new plant: Maryland golden-aster. Parvin itself is a swimming beach on a lake, but closed. They also had a boat launch area on the other side of the lake. I was not very impressed, but this was the first spot I found southern red oak on the trip and I spotted a new one for me: a Hydrocotyle in bloom. Not sure which, though. There were 2 fungi as well.
8-14-18. Lake Nummy, Belleplain State Forest, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 339.5 miles total
Categories: blooming, animals, fungi, new to me.
This was another beach on a lake, but much less well used (but open). The lake was lovely, and I rented a kayak and paddled around (and swam as well. There were two fungi here, a new to me fern, and a watersnake. The ranger also told the me clear circles on the bottom of the lake were made by bluegills. Neat.
8-14-18. Lake Absegami, Bass River, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 339.75 miles total
Categories: new plants, blooming, insects, fungi
This was the last stop on my trip, and very crowded. I drove away from the main area and walked along a dam. But it was hot, humid, and buggy, and I was tired. I didn't find any new species, though both of the new-on-this-trip beak-rushes were growing together here, which was interesting. But I didn't stay long.
Back at the cabin Molly the camp counselor texted to say that they were having an epidemic of stomach flu at camp, so the next day I drove home, showered, and then headed to the camp to help out the nurse. All in all there were 25 kids and 5 staff (of about 280 people) who threw up, 8 of them while I was there. The night before 15 had been vomiting at the same time with just the one nurse (a 20 year old EMT) in charge. Quite an epic last week of camp.
8-18-18. Paulinskill Valley Trail, Fredon, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 340 miles total
Categories: weeds, insects
I stopped by this trail to walk before getting Katie from camp, but the mosquitoes were so thick I was actually breathing them in, and I just couldn't take it. I only lasted a quarter mile and didn't find anything particularly new or interesting. It was like visiting New Hampshire in June. You don't usually need mosquito gear in NJ, and especially not half way through August. It has been an amazingly hot and wet summer here.
Wow! So glad you got your pine barren trip in before heading off to the camp disaster! Your own camping trip sounds like an amazing adventure, with so many botanical discoveries! So many new finds!
8-18-18. Marshfield Rd, Calais VT. 3.1 miles today, 1522.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, blooms
Today I hiked a ways up Marshfield Rd from the East Calais Post Office. I was hoping to see some birds, and I did find a large flock of about 20 goldfinches feeding on chicory or Queen Anne’s lace. I also saw some robins, some crows, and a chipping sparrow. I “caught” an orange butterfly and a monarch caterpillar. Blooms for today were a roadside pea and fireweed. I also found an enormous flock of large land snails. Road kill for today was a single frog. Not so many dead frogs here since the road is rather upland.
8-19-18. Mansion Rd, Dunbarton NH & Turkey Pond Loop, New Hampshire Audubon Society, Concord, NH. 3.6 miles today, 1526.5 miles total.
Categories: blooms, fruits, fungi
I was delighted to find the new bridge on Mansion Rd within Clough State Park open today. This bridge has been closed for 15 years. Now that it’s open again, not only is the straight-away road to the dump open finally, but an enormous network of trails, motorbike and ATV, now suddenly becomes convenient to access. When I parked my car in the ATV lot at 7 AM on Sunday morning, my car was the only vehicle in the lot. When I returned a little after 8 AM, it was the only Prius in the lot. (All the other vehicles were oversized pickup trucks). Along the road, I found hog peanut, silverrod, pearly everlasting, Alleghany monkeyflower, Indian pipes, tick trefoil, and American false pennyroyal in bloom. Blackberries were in fruit (I tried many), and so were silky dogwood berries. There were many, many red efts on one section of the road above a wetlands, fortunately most of them living.
Later in the morning my mother and I walked the Turkey Pond Loop trail at the New Hampshire Audubon Society property. I had my big bird lens on the camera with the hopes of shooting some birds, we only managed to see a single chickadee. Meanwhile, there were lots and lots of fungi to admire in the woods: orange jellyspot, Amanitas, boletes, slime molds, parasitic fungi, coral fungi, cup fungi, shelf fungi, ochre jellyclub, earth tongues, puff balls, black trumpets, poison pigskin, and chanterelles. We also found arrowwood, checkerberry, huckleberry, clethra, and partridgeberry in fruit and yellow water lily, white water lily, and pickerelweed. The understory of the woods was mostly witch hazel and American chestnut—cool! We found a single red eft, and orange caterpillar, and a pair of mating Japanese beetles.
8-20-18. Batten Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1529.6 miles total.
Categories: fruits, fungi, birds
This morning I took a hike up Batten Rd from the East Calais Post Office. I found American shinleaf, blue cohosh, red trillium, northern bog orchid, spikenard, and clammy groundcherry all in fruit, also lily of the valley. I noted a few fungi, including a Marasmus and a white earth tongue. For birds today I “caught” an eastern phoebe and an American robin. Road kill was a very flat toad.
8-19-18. Nelden Roberts Stonehouse, Montague, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 340.25 miles total
Categories: flowering, insects,
Drove up early Sunday to pick up Becca (14) from camp, 2.5 hours away. I stopped several times, first at this preserved home in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (though not particularly near the water gap). There was motherwort in bloom, which I don't often see. Canada moonseed, which is also unsual. On one side of the road there was all smooth sumac, on the other side was all staghorn sumac, which I thought was interesting.
I'm glad to hear you have your bridge back after 15 years. There's a bridge out on a side road along the path I drove today, and it's been out for the 13 years Molly has been going to camp, with no sign of ever being fixed. I always wonder.
I just heard they will be widening the road to the west of us, something they've talked about doing at least since we moved here in 1992. it will be so nice to be able to walk safely to the town (on the shoulder not a sidewalk, but currently it is treacherous). And in the meantime the road will be closed, so I can walk and look at lots of plants I can't usually access. Very exciting.
8-19-18 Shohola Creek, Shohola, PA. 0.25 miles today, 340.5 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects.
On the way to this stop, I passed a flock of well over a dozen turkeys (with juveniles) crossing the state highway. It wasn't yet 9 am on a Sunday and I was the only car there; still not a very safe activity on a 55-mile-per-hour road.
This was essentially a parking area for hunters, but there was no hunting going on today (and I had on my blaze orange hat in any case). Not many surprises here. A nodding (I think) spurge rather than the usual spotted spurge. Flowering raspberries, but I had seen others just up stream at Shohola Falls two weeks ago. Someone had come through and sprayed the road barriers with herbicide, which is always disappointing.
8-19-18 Roebling's Bridge, Highland, NY. 0.25 miles today, 340.75 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects
To get to camp you cross the Delaware three times, each time switching states. So here I crossed into New York. I'd looked at the other side of this bridge two weeks ago, so now I checked out the NY side. There was what might have been a coneflower (yellow "daisies" give me trouble), a yellow mustard I don't know, and bur cucumber in bloom. I also found a large katydid (when it moved; I'd have missed it otherwise) and an amber snail of some kind.
8-19-18 Fort Delaware, Narrowsburg, NY. 0.5 miles today, 341.25 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, fungi
This reconstructed fort was closed, but the grounds were open. There was catnip, asparagus, hazel, an unknown fungus, and rabbit tobacco.
8-19-18 Summit Camp, Honesdale, PA. 0.5 miles today, 341.75 miles total
Categories: blooming
I surreptitiously took pictures of the foliage while picking Becca up from camp. Not many surprises here, though the camp grounds themselves have a wonderful selection of unusual species; we kept to the well-traveled areas. Bladder campion was about as interesting as it got.
My daughter knows me well, though. When I mentioned I had no idea where the camp nurse was located she said, you know, the building right across from the hydrangea! And that made it perfectly clear.
8-20-18. Mt Vernon Rd., Bridgewater, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 342.5 miles total
Categories: insects, unusual
I walked a trail I've walked many times before, through a wet woods (on boardwalks) and then a field of wildflowers. In the woods were the biggest wild grapes I've ever seen. Tasted exactly like grape juice (and nothing like the table grapes I buy at the grocery). I also saw blackhaw with brilliant red fruit stems (and not a single fruit left). Then there was a tiny mushroom with a brilliant red cap and white stem, like a drawing of a mushroom.
Out in the field there was vetch blooming, which I didn't remember, as well as flat topped goldenrod with spindle galls, and Queen Anne's lace. Lots of bugs, including a monarch, and tiny black beetles on the goldenrod that I did not recall seeing before.
8-21-18. Moscow Woods Rd. 3 miles today, 1532.6 miles total.
Categories: blooms, fruits, birds
This morning I walked Moscow Woods Rd from the Post Office. I had a good time looking for fruits, starting off with a lovely spray of moosewood, then some red trillium, alternate-leafed dogwood, and some spikenard that was just ripening. I also found soapwort, bog goldenrod, and turtlehead in bloom, as well as a yellow jewelweed mixed in with the regular spotted jewelweed. (Or was it just a yellow flower on a spotted jewelweed plant?) There weren't many birds calling, but I still managed to catch a hairy woodpecker, American goldfinch, cedar waxwing, mourning dove, and blue jay.
Soon after I reached the halfway point on this out and back and was heading back to the car, a guy in a huge construction vehicle stopped to tell me something. I couldn't hear what he was saying over his engine. So he unhitched his seat belt and scooted over to shout at me through his passenger side window. "Bears ahead! A momma and a cub, one on each side of the road!" I thanked him for the message and turned around again, heading away from the bears and away from my car. I tried hitchhiking back to my car, but there was a lull in traffic for quite a while. Finally, someone drove by and picked me up. She said that she had seen a momma and two cubs on the same stretch of road last week. Wonderful. I decided I'm through with before-breakfast walks by myself for the season. It would take so long to drive out of bear country for a safe walk that it's just not worth while. Besides, there aren't many morning birds left either, and it's no longer too hot to walk later in the day. I'll try some after breakfast walks instead.
8-22-18. North Street, Montpelier, VT. 2.8 miles today, 1535.4 miles total.
Categories: flowering, roadkill
This morning I took my sister and a friend for a walk along North Street in East Montpelier. On most days, this is a walk with million dollar views over the ridgeline looking west towards the spine of the Green Mountains. Today we were in heavy mist, so the views were more local. We ended up walking north away from the long views and into the woods, but that was scenic, too. We found zigzag goldenrod in bloom, a sunflower-like flower with palmate leaves, and a purple iris in bloom. We also found lots of roadkill, including a frog, several red efts, a red-necked snake, and a meadow jumping mouse. As we walked near a pond, we paused to carry 8 tiny red efts across the road.
8-23-18. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais VT. 2.1 miles today, 1537.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, roadkill
I woke early this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went for a walk before breakfast, bears or no bears. Fortunately, no bears today. The first thing I saw when I parked my car was a heap of coyote scat, and around the corner, some coyote tracks in the mud. I found more zigzag goldenrod blooming along the road, also silky dogwood, and whorled wood aster open. I caught some chickadees and a robin with my camera. And road kill today was a mouse and a spring peeper.
8-23-18. Curtis Pond, Calais, VT. 0.2 miles today, 1537.7 miles total.
Categories: insects
I took my sister and a friend kayaking at Curtis Pond this afternoon. Our kayak has 2 seats, so while they went out on the pond with it, I wandered around the margins of the fishing access area looking for insects. I found a bluet and a spreadwing damselfly, some bumblebees and wasps, a willow cone gall and a jewelweed gall, a grass veneer moth and a spotted tussock caterpillar, and a fuzzy orange fly. I also found purple loosestrife, water mint, and turtlehead in bloom and swamp milkweed in fruit.
8-24-17. Center Road, Adamant, VT. 2.3 miles today, 1540 miles total.
Categories: blooms, fruits, birds
I took a walk this morning up Center Rd from downtown Adamant. The morning fog was quite scenic, and I tried to be very noisy just in case there were any bears around. I found Englemann's arrowhead, white waterlily, swamp aster, and turtlehead in bloom, and also a large patch of globe thistle growing out of control spread from a yard planting. For fruits, I found spikenard, blue cohosh, and wild cucumber. While walking past Peck Farm I saw a flock of pigeons, some starlings, and 3 tom turkeys. Also along the road I saw a mourning dove and a white nuthatch. My favorite find of the day was a patch of greater celandine growing in the knothole of a maple tree, several feet off the ground.
8-24-17. North Montpelier Pond, East Montpelier, VT. 2.9 miles today, 1542.9 miles total.
Categories: blooms, fruits, birds
This afternoon I got a chance to take the kayak out myself on North Montpelier Pond. I paddled up the north end of the pond to the inlet of the Kingsbury Branch river and followed the river up until it was blocked by several trees. Along the way, I found in bloom purple loosestrife, white waterlily, nodding bur marigold, turtlehead, marsh saint johnswort, water smartweed, water forget-me-not, blue vervain, water hemlock, Allegheny monkeyflower. I don't remember finding purple loosestrife here before, but maybe I either forgot about it or overlooked it. The good news is that I didn't see any Japanese knotweed along the river at all. I found black elderberry, highbush cranberry, and swamp milkweed in fruit. I also found some rushes and some Carex comosa, nearly piercing my finger to examine the perigynea. On the water a saw a flock of mallards and a different looking duck, and there was a hawk in a branch above the pond.
8-25-17. Max Grey Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1546 miles total.
Categories: birds, fruits, road kill, galls
This morning I drove to the Calais Elementary School and walked from there up Max Grey Rd. I found a crow, some goldfinches, and a chickadee. I also found lots of fruit, including crabapples, sorbaria, wild cucumber, poison ivy, Amur maple, Carolina rose, highbush cranberry, Oriental bittersweet, hobblebush. I was surprised to find the Amur maple and Oriental bittersweet since those aren't common in Calais. I also found Japanese knotweed with flower buds. I found sumac galls, honeysuckle galls, and linden leaf galls. In contrast to yesterday when I didn't find any road kill at all, today the road kill was incredibly thick and varied. People fly down this road in their cars. But they also fly down Center Rd, so I don't think it's just a matter of speed. Center Rd has several farms and perhaps less animal habitat. Max Grey Rd runs through and beside forest. Today's roadkill included an orange sulphur butterfly, a Cecropia moth caterpillar, and a darner dragonfly, several toads, red efts, a spring peeper and other frogs, and a very large ruffed grouse, freshly killed.
8-26-18. Berlin Pond, Berlin, VT. 3.3 miles today, 1547.3 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, blooms
This morning I took my birding lens out for a walk along Berlin Pond. Almost as soon as I got out of my car, a jogger stopped me who wanted to share his observations about the pond since it was opened up to water sports. The pond is actually the drinking water reservoir for the city of Montpelier, as well as the prime birding pond for Central Vermont. Over the last few years it has been the subject of major controversy, since the fishermen and boaters feel they have the right to fish in any large body of water in the state, and the city of Montpelier feels it has the right to protect its public water supply. For the moment, the fishermen have the upper hand and have gained access to the pond for their boats, something that was always forbidden before. The jogger told me that he has been jogging along this pond for years and that now that the pond is open for fishing, there is a lot more trash along the road. He wanted to know if I had noticed any differences in wildlife since access to the pond was opened up. I don't visit this pond often, I told him, so I really didn't know myself. But I encouraged him to check ebird since serious birders have visited the pond for years and submitted birding reports. If there is a difference in wildlife since the pond access was opened, perhaps it could be detected in ebird reports. Another reason for getting out there and reporting what I see today...
Not much for birds, actually, compared to trips I've taken with experienced birders here. Maybe it was too late in the day (after 9 AM), or the wrong season, or I just can't find birds well on my own. My bird list was: mallards, an osprey, a hawk, a turkey vulture, a great blue heron, wood ducks, and a crow. I saw lots of insects, including bumblebees, an eastern forktail, a ladybug, a skimmer dragonfly, a white admiral, a widow skimmer, a white-faced dragonfly, a honeybee, a wasp, and a monarch who wouldn't sit still. In bloom today were purple loosestrife, New England aster, blue vervain, nodding bur marigold, water mint, and a weed that looks pretty common but I couldn't put a name on. In fruit were buttonbush, clematis, black elder, and a nasty but small (for now) patch of phragmites.
8-27-18. Northfield, VT. 2.6 miles today, 1549.9 miles total.
Categories: urban weeds, other blooms, birds, insects
This afternoon I went for a loop across the Norwich campus to downtown Northfield and back. I started off searching for weeds in the drainage ditches and between the cracks of the sidewalk and parking lot pavement on campus. I found both sand spurry and centaury plant together, and a wide variety of knotweeds, smartweeds, and other sidewalk weeds, including green carpetweed, pineapple weed, ragweed, jumpseed, common knotgrass, upright knotweed, Japanese knotweed, tear thumb, Pennsylvania smartweed, lady's thumb, common hempnettle, goosefoot, soapwort, bidens, tower mustard, cudweed, purple loosestrife, false buckwheat and several other mustards. I also found path rush, Bulbostylis capillaris, Cyperus esculentus, and some buckthorn in fruit. Other plants in bloom were blue vervain, white vervain, flat-topped goldenrod, Indian tobacco, willowherb, and water mint. I crossed the railroad tracks, then the Dog River and the rugby fields, then walked down the road along the river. Near the center of town I found a new park along the river, a delightful green space that wasn't there last time I walked this route. Insects that I found there included Carolina grasshopper, honeysuckle gall, orange sulphur, common ringlet, cabbage white, honeybee, goldenrod stem gall, willow leaf gall, and sawfly larvae. Birds today were crows, a goldfinch, robins, starlings, a pair of noisy belted kingfishers, pigeons (lots!), a pair of solitary sandpipers, mourning doves, house sparrows (lots), and a phoebe. Along the trail by the athletic fields I found a garter snake. I knelt down for a closer photo and it coiled and feinted an attack--very exciting, or so it thought. I herded it off the trail and into the woods before a student came by who might not appreciate its presence.
8-28-18. George Rd, Calais VT. 2.9 miles today, 1552.8 miles total.
Categories: insects, birds, road kill
This afternoon I took a hike up George Rd in the heat to check on the waterfall on Tucker Rd. There is still no water flowing there. It's been a hot, dry summer here. Insects I found today were a false hemlock looper moth, a green caterpillar, a sawfly larva, a Carolina grasshopper, an orange sulphur, a monarch, and a white admiral. I "caught" a common yellowthroat and a blue jay, and I also found a large turkey feather, bigger than my foot. Road kill today were a monarch, a large green caterpillar, perhaps from a luna moth, and a frog/toad. I checked the wild plum tree on George Rd, and it is in full fruit. I also noticed a Scots pine across the field at the top of George Rd. Have I seen that one before?
8-29-18. Cross Town Rd, Berlin, VT. 2.9 miles today, 1555.7 miles total.
Categories: insects, blooms, trees, road kill
Late this morning I took a walk through "downtown" Berlin, starting at the town offices. I had intended on walking down Rowell Hill Rd, but I didn't have a good sense of scale when looking at the map. At my 1.5 mile turnaround point, I hadn't even reach the intersection where Rowell Hill leaves Cross Town Rd. Next time! I don't walk in this area much, so I shot a few trees along the way, including a Scots pine, a hemlock (gotta note their locations for baseline), a red oak, and a red maple in full brilliant red fall plumage. I found New England aster open for the first time this season, also butter-and-eggs and soapwort, and ripe grapes. Insects today included a banded tussock moth caterpillar, a sawfly larva, a fuzzy brown and black caterpillar that wasn't a woolly bear, and a monarch on the wing. Road kill were a red eft, a Carolina grasshopper, a chipmunk (fresh), and a red squirrel (also fresh).
wow, fall color and new england asters already. you really have pulled ahead of me. What is upright knotweed? A polygonum? We don't have tower mustard here, but your other parking lot weeds sound very familiar.
I've had a crazy couple of weeks, and found I went 7 days without walking! Then I drove up to visit my sister in Boston, and will be writing those up tomorrow, I hope.
I love your insect and bird lists. I'm getting more aware of bird calls lately, now I just have to start putting names to them!
According to my notes, upright knotweed is a common name for Polygonum erectum, which looks a lot like Polygonum aviculare but stands up tall and grazes your calves instead of hugging the sidewalk so tightly. We'll see what other folks say once I can upload the photo. I've been having trouble with the batch loader lately. @carrieseltzer is looking into this. Have you had any troubles with batch uploads this week? (Yeah, right, if you had any time to even get your photos off your camera...).
If you're interested in learning more about bird songs, I highly recommend "What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World" by Jon Young. After reading and working through this book several times, I'm finding bird calls are really sticking with me now. Rather than just memorizing the calls by rote, I'm listening to them intently, and that's making all the difference.
I'm slowly getting used to walking later in the day. It's hard for me to start the day without a walk, and even harder to remember to stop sometime during the day to take a walk. But there are certainly fewer bears later in the day, and it's lighter as well. Too dark now to walk at 6 AM here.
I haven't used the uploader since the 25th, but it didn't give me trouble then. Maybe later today.
Thank you for the book recommendation.
I'm looking forward to school starting up again (Sept 6) so I can get back in my old walk pattern (which was between lunch and afternoon buses), hoping it will also soon be a bit cooler midday.
I'm so impressed with you two and your commitment to walking and iNaturalist! I'm sorry about the upload errors Erika and hope we can figure it out soon for you.
I'm wondering about P. erectum and if i'm misidentifying things as it. From eflora it seems to be all about color: P. aviculare being blue green with flowers edged in white or pink, and P. erectum being yellow-green with flowers edged in yellow. Both can be upright and otherwise identical. Now to go back through my photos (I have 83 of them!)
I just uploaded a chunk (96) and it worked well for me; perhaps it's fixed?
8-27-18. Hauser Dr., Warren, NJ and Newtown Rd., Danbury, CT. 0.25 miles today, 342.75 miles total
Categories: weeds, galls, insects
Before I left for Boston I dropped my daughter's laptop off to be fixed. The path in was very interesting, with a stem gall on pilewort I've not seen before, an escaped Japanese maple, and a lot of reproducing liverwort (I love the umbrella like structures they make).
Then, on the way to Six Flags New England, we stopped at a Burger King for lunch and they had a lovely lot of weeds in the back of the parking lot, with pale jewelweed, grape phylloxera galls, what I think was a fall webworm devouring multiflora rose, and a nice dragonfly as well.
8-28-18. Franklin Park Zoo, Boston, MA. 1.5 miles today, 344.25 miles total.
Categories: Weeds, insects, flowering
My sister and I took Becca and Katie (and my sister's friend's family) to the zoo on this very hot morning. We'd not been before. I spent far more time looking at plants than animals, but enjoyed a talking cockatoo, a baby monkey, an anteater, a pair of Bactrian camels and a very vocal warthog. Blooming were asters, goldenrod, wood sorrel, vetch, hawkweed, knapweed, burdock, lobelia, and dandelions. They had nearly every common roadside weed I can think of, and both black swallowwort and tansy, neither of which I see much in NJ.
Back at my sister's house we weeded and cut back some shrubs. Her yard is full of a weed I didn't recognize, which turned out to be first year creeping bellflower (there were some blooming ones as well, but I didn't make the connection). I've only seen it once in NJ, but it was everywhere in Boston.
8-29-18. Arlington Heights, Arlington, MA. 1.25 miles today, 345.5 miles total.
Categories: blooming weeds
My sister and I walked her dog around her neighborhood this morning. blooming were carpetweed, chicory, pilewort, nightshade, spurge, rabbit tobacco, dayflowers, and smartweed.
8-29-18. Cambridge St. and Middlesex Turnpike, Burlington, MA. 0.25 miles today, 345.75 miles total
Categories: weeds.
I ran some errands this morning and took photos in both parking lots. I find it odd how common tansy is as a weed here; it was everywhere. I found smooth and staghorn sumacs in fruit, a nice little damselfly, and Panicum elegans. My sister has a flower CSA and her share this week included Panicum elegans. I got to tell her I'd just seen it in the Trader Joe's parking lot.
8-29-18. Stagecoach Lane, Dover, MA. 0.5 miles today, 346 miles total
Categories: weeds
We visited my cousin's brand new house and Becca caught me a spider on their kitchen floor, which I think shocked my cousin a bit. Their backyard ends at a wetlands easement, which is at the top of a hill right there and has no wetland plants whatsoever, though I assume once you go down to the level of the brook there will be plenty. The whole area was pretty junky, with oriental bittersweet dominating on the ground under an old pine plantation. The most interesting thing was some Mazus in the lawn. But I got to show my cousin and her husband (who have three little boys) what poison ivy looks like, which was something. (My cousin's husband is Portuguese and had never seen it before).
8-30-18. Habitat, Belmont, MA. 0.75 miles today, 346.75 miles total
Categories: unintentional plants, insects, galls, fungi
Sitting at my sister's house, looking at iNaturalist, I decided to check for nearby projects. A mile away or so was Mass Audubon's Habitat reserve, which has the iHabitat project, a three year-old ongoing project to track the fauna flora and fungi of the reserve. They had about 75 observations, about 20 of which were plants. This offended me. My sister had never been, so Thursday morning we walked there with Katie (but not Becca, who was tired) before heading back to NJ. It was muggy, and the gnats and mosquitoes were thick, but it's a lovely wooded sanctuary. I made 95 observations, 75 plants, and more than doubled their totals. Interesting items were lots of colorful fungi, a silverbell in fruit, and some mountain ash (though I suspect the latter two were planted). We also met a friendly goldendoodle with no apparent owner, and a whole herd of goats which live on the property.
August 27, 2018. Vincent F. Albano Jr Playground, and Bellevue South Park, Manhattan, NYC. Distance: less than half a mile (I have Achilles tendinosis.)
Categories: weeds, insects, my first post in this project.
Ed and I took a taxi so I could continue investigating the smaller and lesser-known parks of Manhattan, gradually working my way south from where I live. The Albano playground park was quite small and plain. Japanese Mazus was flowering, Carolina Horse Nettle was in bud, and that odd woody creeper that I can't ID was profusely climbing over a high fence at the back of the park.
Bellevue Park South Park is fairy large, well designed and well arranged, but poorly maintained.
Every park that I visit has a different lineup of weeds. Here there was quite a lot of Burdock on the south end. Yellow Archangel definitely seems to be poised to escape cultivation, both here and at several other places in Manhattan.
My most interesting find was a massive amount of Sipthorp's Pennywort in the lawn of the new-ish residential buildings which abut the park to the west. This is only the third known iNat occurrence of that weed in Manhattan and surrounding areas, and it was entirely new to me.
I also couldn't help stopping to photograph a whole bunch more weeds on the way over to 1st Ave to catch a taxi home. I have really become a weed connoisseur over the last year or two!
August 31, 2018, Randall's Island, Manhattan, NYC. Distance: less than half a mile (I have Achilles tendinosis.)
Categories: Saltwater fish, weeds, wildflowers, seashells, insects
In order to be present at the monthly fish count, I got to Randall's Island, the Wards Island beach, with my knee roller by 7:30 (low tide), and Matt Parr (ginsengandsoon) met me there at 8 am. The RIPA Natural Areas team did not arrive until 8:45. White waiting we found a lot of different algae, especially many genera of red algae, and remains of some marine invertebrates: mollusks and crabs.
On the way over to the beach from Central Road, where the taxi dropped me off, I photographed Summer Cypress -- rather a rare weed that I had to ping Daniel Atha of NYBG to ID for me.
For the fish count we did three seining attempts off Wards Island (Atlantic SiIlversides, Northern Pipefish (very cool creature!), Eastern Mud snails, Oyster Toadfish, baby Blue Crabs, baby Striped Bass and a young Scup -- rare, and I had never heard of it, but supposedly they are very good to eat).
Then we seined three times in the Inlet of the Little Hell Gate Salt Marsh, where we caught huge numbers of Eastern Mud Snails, more Silversides, more Striped Bass, and many cute Mummichogs -- little fish that like to live in shadow salt puddles in the salt marsh itself.
I photographed mammal footprints in the sand there, but they turned out to be from one of the island's feral cats.
Then Matt and I visited the nearby Wildflower meadow for 40 minutes. I got to see my first Tumbling Flower Beetle and my first Ambush Bug. We also found another example of a newly imported European jumping spider and one tiny Vertigo pygmaea land snail.
There were lots of interesting leaf miners, including one in Poison Ivy!
I've also seen a poison ivy leafminer and wondered if anyone ever was brave enough to deal with rearing them for ID.
Yikes. But I suppose there are some people who do not react to Poison Ivy.
To my surprise I also seem to have picked up a small tick, I assume on Friday August 31st on Randall's, but by the time I found it on my arm on Sunday, I had spent an hour on Saturday afternoon, and another hour on Sunday morning, running lengths submerged in chlorinated water, and it was dead and shriveled. It didn't even look like a tick under magnification, but I suppose that is what it was. My doctor sent it off for identification. There are no deer on Randall's, and no ticks that anyone knows about. Trust me to find something rare!
(Update -- it wasn't a tick but a very small scab from a tiny injury that I don't even recall getting -- the scab was still attached at one end.)
That's actually really neat. I hope it did not carry any diseases, but how cool.
Ah -- I was very glad today to find out that what I thought might be a tick, was actually just a small scab that was still attached by one end! So I am glad I did not photograph it for iNat, otherwise I would now have to label it Human! ha ha!
Haha, that's good news, Susan! :-)
Thanks Carrie!
8/30/18. Old Country Club Rd, 0.6 miles today, 1556.3 miles total
Categories: insects, invasives, blooms
This morning I went on a walk up Old Country Club Rd with my 2 friends who are interested in insects. It was a brilliantly sunny warm day, so we were quite successful at finding a great variety of pollinators and other insects. Our finds included: wasps, bumblebees, flies, grasshoppers, sumac galls, golden rod rosette galls, Rhopalomyia capitata galls, a Lygus bug, a black and gold bug, a brown bug with mites, a tussock moth caterpillar, a Halysidota tesselaris caterpillar, a Euchaetes egle caterpillar, a Lophocampa maculata caterpillar, another yellow and black caterpillar (not Lophocampa maculata), a wooly bear, another black and brown caterpillar (not a wooly bear), a Crambid moth, a cabbage white butterfly, a crescent butterfly, monarch butterflies, a sulfur butterfly, an Asian ladybug, Japanese beetle, a Chrysochus auratus beetle, a giant crane fly, a stonefly, a harvestman, and a spider. Invasive plants that I noticed today included purple loosestrife, scots pine, Japanese barberry, Dianthus, poison ivy, Japanese knotweed, and Oriental bittersweet. Blooming today were silverrod, turtlehead, sunflowers, and a wild strawberry. I also found a new-to-me sedge, Cyperus bipartatus.
8/31/18. Luce Rd, Calais VT. 3 miles today, 1559.3 miles total
Categories: butterflies, road kill
This morning I drove to the post office and walked from there up Luce Rd. I’ve only walked Luce Rd once before, back in 2015 when I was doing my Calais Roads project (when I walked every road in town just to see what was there). Last time I photographed trees, so this time I kept my eyes out for animals and fungi. I only found one fungus, an artist’s bracket attached to a sugar maple. I caught several butteflies, though, including a monarch, a wood nymph, a sulphur, and a cabbage white. Road kill today were 2 flattened vertebrates and a blackened frog. Scat of the day was coyote/fox.
I loved the comment about the fall webworm catepillar devouring the multiflora rose, Sara! And the Franklin Park zoo sounds interesting. Next time I visit my sister in Medford, I should make a trip out there. Way to go on expanding the iHabitat project catalog of observations! What a terrific way to spend the day!
That's a neat observation about different parks having different sets of weeds, Susan! Worth following up some time...The fish survey sounds fascinating. Mummichogs? Cool name! The feral cat prints are well worth submitting to document the presence of feral cats and where they roam. I do a lot of that when we're visiting Martinique since the feral cats are so common there. It's worth knowing where the feral cats are.
There are a disappointingly large number of feral cats on Randall's Island. I suppose over the years people have dumped unwanted pets there. And then also some people come and dump huge quantities of dried cat food to feed the cats. Makes an unfortunate impact on the wildlife.
Add a Comment