September 2020: 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
9/1/20. Tucker Rd, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 2783.5 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I parked at the Chickering Bog parking lot and walked along Tucker Rd. I took a short detour at the top of Lightening Ridge where I heard some warblers chipping. They were fast, though, and I never really got any good looks. Except for a few common yellow-throats. The field below Lightening Ridge was empty of birds when I walked past, but when I returned, there were 3 crows gleaning close to the road. The horses were in their pen by their barn today and they were muttering as I passed. I could hear the fence clicking away! I have been a bit dismayed to see Jim's yard lately. He had wonderful flower beds, lots of day lilies and wild flowers all mixed in and jumbled that the birds just loved. He also had bushy shrubs along the road near the yard. I guess his wife has ambitions of a classic American lawn. A few weeks ago she mowed down much of the yard, saving only a few rows of flowers near the road. The birds are now quiet there where they used to riot. Oh well. The wildflowers will grow back, someday, I'm sure. I managed to catch a chickadee, a blue jay, a red-eyed vireo, and the crows. Road kill today was several salamanders, one of which I scooped up to see if I can come up with a method to preserve it in resin.
9/2/20. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 2785.5 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners
This morning I got all set to head out the door when it started raining. So I skipped my morning bird walk. If I were going out looking at plants a little rain wouldn't stop me, not even a lot of rain. But birds don't like rain any more than we do, so there's not much point in hunting birds in the rain. Plus, my long birding lens wouldn't like it either. I waited until this afternoon, but by then the birds weren't anywhere to be seen. Instead, I watched for leaf miners, looking for some that I could share during show and tell with Charley Eiseman's leaf miners class online with Eagle Hill this week. I found some on wild sarsaparilla, bunchberry, heartleaf aster, burdock, yellow birch, and red maple. I also found a cool leaf gall sticking up out of an elm leaf. No road kill today.
9/3/20. Chickering Rd, Calais, Vt. 2 miles today, 2787.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, road crossers
This morning I headed out to Chickering Rd for my bird walk. Even though I waited until 7:30 before I started, it was still quite foggy and misty when I went out. Right near the car I came across a small mixed flock of chickadees and warblers, including several black-throated greens. After that, it was rather quiet, almost until the end of the road by the ponds. There were 8 mallards on the 2 ponds, as well as some robins and jays by the ponds, and lots more chickadees. On the way back, I encountered a very large flock of mixed warblers and chickadees, including more black-throated greens, some chestnut-sided warblers, and some magnolia warblers, plus some nut hatches. All along the way, I found many red efts, mostly living, from tiny dark ones to very large bright red ones.
9/4/20. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 1.1 miles today, 2788.6 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I went down to the Nature Center for the first group bird walk of the year there. There were 2 leaders, Chip Darmstadt and Zac Cota, who each took a group of 4-5 people in separate directions, all masked and at a distance. It was quite exciting to meet up with longterm birding friends again. And yet, it felt a little odd having some many people out on a bird walk after months of solitary walks. With all the catching up chatter, it was hard to hear the birds. Nevertheless, we did see quite a few birds, including gold finches, an osprey, some blue jays, chickadees, an American redstart, and a flicker. Folks in my group also saw a cuckoo, an olive-sided fly catcher, and a scarlet tanager, but I never managed to get sight of them, even when folks were pointing them out. No doubt, for all the birds I see in the mornings by myself, there must be a lot more that I don't see.
9/5/20. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais VT. 0.3 miles today, 2788.9 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I took a brief bird walk on Lightening Ridge Rd. The warblers were out so I didn't get very far. I found yellow throats, some Nashville warblers, a red-eyed vireo, a chickadee, and some blue jays. I also found a new neighbor out enjoying the day. She is Covid-sheltering here from Florida with her family. She said she likes to bird in Florida but they have large sea birds there. She doesn't know where to start here since the birds are so small. If she lasts through the Vermont winter maybe we can get out walking together.
9/5/20. Kelton Rd, East Montpelier, VT. 2.7 miles today, 2791.6 miles total.
Categories: insects, leaf miners, vertebrates
Later in the morning I met up with 3 friends for our Saturday morning hike along Kelton Rd. Kelton is partially a public road, and partially a fenced trail. The trail portion connects up to the trail we walked last week down from Chickering Rd. The first sight of the day was a turkey vulture circling the polo pony farm on Kelton. Later, we found a large garter snake sunning beside the trail. Insects were grasshoppers, a spreadwing, a lightning bug, a yellow jacket, a small carpenter bee, a stinkbug larva, a hover fly, several wasps, a dagger moth caterpillar, and a fall webworm caterpillar. I found leaf miners on ash, heart-leaved aster, Virginia creeper, and raspberry. Roadkill was a toad.
9/6/20. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 1.7 miles today, 2793.3 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I walked part way up Peck Hill looking for birds. I found a large flock of turkeys in the field on Peck Hill, then a flock of warblers at the edge of the field that kept me rooted in place for a while. There were yellow rumps, yellow throats, Nashvilles, black-throated greens, and a red-eyed vireo as well as chickadees, nuthatches and vireos. Other birds for the day were a gold finch and a sapsucker.
9/6/20. Wells River Trail, Groton, VT. 1 mile today, 2794.3 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners, insects
Later in the morning I took a walk along the Wells River Trail in Groton State Park while my husband was unicycling the rail trail. I figured this would be a quiet part of the park even though it was a beautiful day during a three-day weekend. I saw a few people along the trail, but just a few, and the trail is wide having once been a road. I found leaf miners on whorled wood aster, hazelnut, heart-leaved aster, wild sarsaparilla, beech, dewberry, blackberry, meadow rue, silverrod, winterberry, iris, water horehound, and panicled aster. I also found several wasps, some Japanese beetles (mating), some leaf bugs, and an assassin bug. And some cranberries.
9/7/20. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT. 1.4 miles today, 2795.7 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I walked along George Rd and Pekin Brook Rd looking for birds. When I got to the point on Pekin Brook where there is an east-facing steep slope covered with birch trees just across the road from the brook I stopped and didn't get any further. Too many warblers in the trees! I found yellow rumps, yellow throats, Nashvilles, a pair of bay-breasted warblers, a red-eyed vireo, some chipping sparrows and song sparrows, some goldfinches, chickadees, blue jays, and mourning doves. Road kill was a large garter snake and a flattened frog-toad.
9/7/20. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 1.7 miles today, 2797.4 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners, insects
This afternoon I took a leisurely stroll down George Rd and up Peck Hill in search of leaf miners for the online class I'm taking with Charley Eiseman. I found miners on plantain, coltsfoot, yellow birch, alternate-leaved dogwood, moneywort, daylilies, heart-leaved aspen, sweet white clover, false Solomon's seal, willow, and hemp nettle. I found some wasps and a honey bee on the Japanese knotweed along the road and a big fat juicy silkmoth caterpillar.
9/8/20. Tucker Rd, Calais, VT. 1.6 miles today, 2799 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning when I pulled into the Chickering Bog parking lot for my birdwalk, birds scattered in every direction. There had been several in the parking lot itself, probably song sparrows. I stood around in the parking lot for quite a while to try to see who was making all the warbler chirps but never got a good enough look. Finally, I headed up to Lightening Ridge and down Tucker. I found crows in the freshly mowed field, and heard lots of chickadees and nuthatches. When I came to the clearing where Jim lives with his wandering horses, I was again surrounded by warblers. This time I managed to see a few of them including black-throated greens and Nashville warblers, some song sparrows, gold finches, and blue jays, and a hummer in the planters on the front steps of Jim's house. Then Jim came out to chat and we had a chance to catch up. On the way back I saw several broad-winged hawks perching at the tops of the trees.
9/8/20. Railroad Bed East, Groton, VT. 1.9 miles today, 2800.9 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners, insects, birds
Today I went walking along the old Railroad Bed in Groton while my husband rode his unicycle from Marshfield Pond down to Ricker Pond along the rail trail through the woods. Along side the railroad bed is an active beaver pond that likes to overtake the road. After dropping my husband off at Marshfield Pond, I drove down the railroad bed in my Prius. While marked on the map as a road, it isn't really, and shouldn't be driven on in an Prius, but the car survived. I had to drive so slow that my husband nearly kept up with me on his unicycle. There are long pot holes where in wetter seasons the water is over the road. Now the road is dry, but with 6-8" depressions.
I greatly enjoyed the quiet and lack of traffic on the "road" as I went hunting for leaf miners. I found miners on chokecherry, elm, willow, raspberry, balsam poplar, goldenrods, meadowsweet, clematis, flat-topped aster, red maple, blackberry, alder, marsh St. Johnswort, nodding beggarticks, water horehound, paper birch, hawthorn, Joe Pye weed, and mountain ash. Birds today were a song sparrow, a cat bird, a flock of blue jays, a flicker, and a kestrel. Other sights were autumn meadowhawks (in wheel), skippers, a mourning cloak, a white admiral, a monarch, potter wasps, crane fly, yellow jackets, several spiders, including a jumping spider eating the worm out of a goldenrod stem gall, a green caterpillar with black dots, some fall webworm caterpillars, a tricolored bumblebee, a northern amber bumblebee, a common eastern bumblebee, gnat ogre, a willow leaf gall, some hover flies, a lightning bug, and a muskrat. Road kill was a toad and several green frogs.
9/9/20. Dover Rd, Montpelier VT. 1.9 miles today, 2802.8 miles total.
Categories: insects, leaf miners
This afternoon I met up with my 2 bug walk friends plus another friend for a hike up to the water tower. We had purposefully chosen the warmest day of the week for our walk, mindful that last week was a little chilly for bugging. Today was perhaps a little too warm (88F), sunny, and dry. My friends were a bit disappointed in the meager bug finds for the day, but I had a grand time searching for leaf miners in the big city. I found miners on sweet white clover, Joe Pie weed, nasturtium, red osier dogwood, buckthorn, honeysuckle, coltsfoot, strawberry, box elder, flat-topped asters, sugar maple, and avens. The worms were still wiggling inside the sugar maple and avens leaves, so I showed them to my friends, who were suitably impressed the cuteness of the worms as seen through backlit leaves.
Other finds today were some Lobelia and silverrod, a willow leaf gall, a grasshopper, an Ichneumon wasp, a paper wasp, a black seed bug, a brown stink bug, a multi-colored leaf hopper, a micromoth, a common eastern bumblebee, a green sweat bee, a small carpenter bee, a lightning bug, and several spiders.
9/10/20. Chickering Bog access trail, Calais, VT. 1.2 miles today, 2804 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners, arthropods
This morning I went leaf miner searching along the Chickering Bog access trail. In 2 hours I didn't make it even halfway to the bog, but I found lots of leaf miners, which made me quite happy. It was sunny and warm, perhaps the last sunny and warm for the year. I found leaf miners or feeding sign on milkweed, wild parsnip, honeysuckle, lilac, black ash, wild chervil, jewelweed, Joe Pye weed, choke cherry, willow, swamp aster, thimbleberry, coltsfoot, burdock, lady fern, heart-leaved aster, buckthorn, wild lettuce, hawthorn, trillium, sugar maple, wild sarsaparilla, helleborine, hemp nettle, pyrola, marsh fern, avens, baneberry, beech fern, meadow rue, and Christmas fern. Other arthropods for the day were an assassin bug, some spiders, a rove beetle, and a blister beetle.
9/11/20. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 2.1 miles today, 2806.1 miles total.
Categories: birds, leaf miners, arthropods
This morning I met up with the Friday morning birders at the Nature Center. Today we had 10 people, including 3 leaders, as well as several ringers in the group. So we saw a lot of birds. Highlights for the day were a flock of 50 crows, a palm warbler at close range, a goshawk, lots of red-eyed vireos, black-throated greens, scarlet tanagers, some hummingbirds, a solitary flycatcher, a mallard, and begging juvenile goldfinches. After the walk, I returned for another loop around the property looking for leaf miners and feeding sign. I found possible leaf miners on mugwort, Canada thistle, pineapple weed, goldenrod, grape, bishop's weed, walnut, red osier dogwood, clematis, balsam poplar, ground nut, buckthorn, bindweed, curly dock, sensitive fern, pennywort, ninebark, and alder. And I found my first open New England asters for the season. I also found a common eastern bumblebee, a leaf hopper, a jumping spider, a grasshopper, a lightning bug, and a dead baby mouse.
9/12/20. Curtis Pond, Calais, VT 2.2 miles today, 2808.3 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners
This morning I met up with 3 friends for our Saturday morning hike. We hiked along the camp road near Curtis Pond. I found several leaf miners, including some on honeysuckle, thimbleberry, Canada mayflower, Columbine and bush honeysuckle. No road kill today!
9/12/20. Ricker Pond, Groton, VT. 1.7 miles today, 2810 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners, spiders
This afternoon I went kayaking on Ricker Pond while my husband unicycled down from Marshfield Pond. I was looking for more leaf miners along the edge of the pond and in the water plants. I also had my eye out of spiders since I decided to take the online spider workshop with Eagle Hill at the end of the month. I found Tetragnatha, Philodromus, a six-spotted orb weaver, and a Theridion spider. Leaf miners along the pond were on yellow birch, sweet gale, white water lily, mountain holly, and maybe rhododendron.
9/13/20. Sodom Pond, Calais, VT. 1.6 miles today, 2811.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, arthropods, leaf miners
This morning I went down to Adamant for an after breakfast bird walk. The birds were relatively quiet, or maybe I just didn't hear them because I was having so much fun chasing leaf miners. I found some autumn meadow hawks, a darner, a spreadwing, some wasps, some bumblebees, a crab spider, a dagger moth caterpillar, and a monarch. The only birds I caught were a juvenile robin and a wood duck. Leaf miners around the pond were on honeysuckle, chokecherry, alder, balsam poplar, Clematis, beggarticks, buckthorn, aster, blackberry, bush honeysuckle, swamp aster, and swamp milkweed.
9/14/20. East Montpelier Town Forest, Adamant, VT. 1.5 miles today, 2813.1 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners, arthropods
This afternoon I took a stroll through the East Montpelier Town Forest in search of leaf miners. I started with a brief stroll through the music school grounds near the Adamant Church. I found leaf miners on some planted sunflowers near the back door of the music school dining hall, and some more on some planted oaks on the hill side. The school now has a forest of new-to-the-area tree starts on the hill, including some burr oaks, and perhaps swamp white oak, plus a sycamore. I wonder who has decided to create this forest of odd trees here and why. I found more leaf miners on raspberries, Joe Pye weed, chokecherry, goldenrods, red maple, hop hornbeam, asters, Canada mayflower, helleborine, and dogwood. I also found a jumping spider, a caterpillar, and a pair of Japanese beetles (mating). I found that searching for leaf miners helped me focus on the mix of plant species that I was seeing. There was a lot more species diversity in the shrubby wet slope on the edge of the forest than deep in the mature woods (duh!) where most of the ground cover was ferns. I came out of the forest today along a mowed utility corridor that I walked for the very first time, a new discovery for me, even though I've been walking this area for 20 years.
9/15/20. #10 Pond, Calais, VT, 2.2 miles today, 2815.3 miles total.
Categories: leaf miners, arthropods
This afternoon I dropped my husband off with his unicycle at Greenwood Lake so he could do a 12 mile road home. Then I plunked my kayak in #10 Pond, which I haven't boated on in several years. The water level in the pond is quite low due to our ongoing drought. I would estimate perhaps 18-24" lower than usual. I had hoped to find lots of leafminers in the overhanging branches, but many of the branches were several feet from the water. Lots of alders and some birches, mostly yellow birch, were hanging over the water, plus some white ashes and a black cherry or two. In general there wasn't much variety in the foliage that I could reach. Still, I found leafminers on pond lily, alder, willow, red maple, yellow birch, paper birch, boneset, and black cherry. I also found a few strands of purple loosestrife and a patch of poison ivy. Plus several spiders and a snail shell.
How interesting to try to preserve killed salamanders. I'd be interested in seeing the results if they work out. I didn't realize Eagle Hill was offering virtual courses; leafminers with Charley Eiseman would be so interesting. So hard to find birds folks are pointing at when you can't get close enough to the folks to look along their line of sight. Neat to have bug-loving friends to walk with. I've never managed to impress anyone with a leafmine, though I once saw some beautiful serpentine mines on aspen (but had no one with me to show them to).
9-2-20 Eastfields Park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 813.75 miles total
I needed some peace and quiet, so took a brief walk through the woods here. I was surprised to find a mimosa tree here I'd never noticed before. I saw lots of different smartweeds and found mines in pilewort and grape. And I photographed a big-ish fish that turned out to be some kind of sucker.
9-6-20. Washington Valley Park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 814.5 miles total
Today was my 50th birthday and my sister, Kate, was in town for the occasion. So in the morning we went for a short walk, to see the quarry and waterfall. The weather was lovely. Interesting finds included hairy skullcap, zigzag goldenrod, a dimorphic jumping spider, Indian pipes, dittany, elm-leaved goldenrod, woodland sunflower, several different bush clovers, pennywort actually in bloom (I always find it in fruit). richweed, Galium circaezans, bluestem goldenrod, silverrod, and several smartweeds.
9-7-20 Rieglesville-Warren Glen Rd., River Rd., Hoffman Park. Hunterdon County, NJ. 1.0 miles today, 815.5 miles total
Today I drove through Hunterdon County and stopped at several roadside pullouts to see what there was, then walked a good ways at Hoffman Park (which was absolutely infested with lanternflies). At the first stop I found my first ever kudzu. It really did smell like grape jelly. Along the Delaware I found a smartweed that may well be an undescribed hybrid; and expert contacted me about it (he'd found some north of here the same day).
Other interesting finds included familiar bluet, water plantain, slaty skimmer, seedbox (a favorite of mine), great blue lobelia, pale smartweed, bur cucumber, ivy leaved toadflax, water chickweed, wingstem, hackberry petiole gall.
9-8-20 Coddington Farm, Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 815.75 miles total
I jut did a quick walk this evening to escape from the house. I got a bluebird and some bees, a wasp, a fly, and ant. I've been here zillions of times, so no plant surprises.
9-10-20. Forrestal Campus Princeton, and the Meadows, Somerset, NJ. .75 miles today, 816.5 miles total
I had a post-surgery check-up today (all is well) and walked the edge of a fenced-off, empty lot across the street, photographing weeds. Only when I turned to go back to my car did I see that the parking lot next to it was full of signs saying "No Photography". Oops. (though I don't think the signs were meant to indicate the lot). On the way home I stopped at The Meadows which is an access point to the canal tow path.
Interesting finds included a blue that was willing to sit still long enough to be photographed, wingstem, turtlehead, the back end of a great blue heron (flying away from me), a cooperative cabbage white, and a posing amberwing, several different smartweeds, lots of ladybugs, a milkweed bug, and a nice Amanita-type mushroom.
9-12-20. Riverview Drive and 2nd St., Perth Amboy, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 817 miles total.
I drove to the mouth of the Raritan River today and walked two beaches there. I found salsify, saltwort, sandbur, a barnacle, horseshoe crab, a chunk of bait fish that was probably menhaden, mud snails, jingles, blood ark, jackknife, quahog, slipper shell, soft shelled clam, blue crab, several seaweeds, winged pigweed, common morning glory, cockelbur, camphorweed (a new one for me), jimsonweed, prostrate pigweed, a big bluet, summer cypress, herring gulls, Atriplex, marsh elder, saltmarsh cordgrass, ribbed mussels, a black-backed gull, and sharp leaved fluellin (an new one for me)
9-13-20. Great Swamp, Harding, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 818.25 miles total
I drove through the center of the swamp today and stopped at several spots along the road (and one set of trails) to take photos. Interesting finds included a scape moth, a hummingbird moth, sneezeweed, skullcap, a dock I don't recognize, Gerardia, willow-herb, Euthamia galls, trumpet vine, lots of asters, a clover leafmine, lizard's tail, cardinal flower, what might have been wild rice, lots of smartweeds, and several Bidens.
9-14-20. Mountain Park, Liberty Corner, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 818.5 miles total
It was a beautiful evening and I just had time for a very short walk, so I went to this field to check out the flowers and potential pollinators. I found a mantis, lots of sachems, a carpenter bee, the hedgebindweed was blooming, lots of goldenrod, bidens, smartweeds, an Eristalis fly, honey bees, rough avens, an orbweaver, ebony bugs.
As I got back near the car I decided to sit for a few minutes on the lawn in the shade of a tree to read my book. Big mistake. I managed to sit near the home of some biting ants, and got 24 separate bites all over both legs. Took a day for them to stop hurting, a week to stop itching, and the marks themselves are still faintly visible. And we don't even have red imported fire ants here; it was some other biting ant (I was a little too distracted to take a photo).
9-15-20. Washington Valley Rd., Warren, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 819 miles total.
This evening I walked down to see the progress on the repair of a local bridge. The only unusual things I saw were a sowthistle and white poplar, but it was a nice night for a walk and good to just get out of the house.
9-16-20. Coddington Farm, Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 819.25 miles total.
Another quiet evening escape to a local park. I was experimenting with a new macro lens. found a grass-veneer moth, sassafras fruits, a nice, big hornet nest, some butterflyweed I suspect was planted, ants tending aphids on pilewort, shining flatsedge, an orange assassin bug, dark paper wasp, honeybee, bumble bees, and Lobelia inflata still blooming. And I looked much closer at a whole lot of common plants.
9-17-20. Vermeule Park, North Plainfield, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 819.5 miles total.
This is a relatively local park with a nice playground near one of our big local shopping areas. I used to take the children here all the time, but realized I'd not been in 5 years. So I walked the edge of the property again. There's a little historic graveyard here, edged with a wall of blooming ivy, and I was busily taking photos of all the insects on it when a neighbor started asking what I was doing, then telling me her life story. She was rather deaf, and it was remarkably hard to extract myself from the conversation. Meanwhile I was getting absolutely eaten alive by Asian tiger mosquitoes. Between that and the ant bites from Monday I wasn't sure I was going to make it home alive, from all the itching.
I did get some action shots of the mosquitoes, as well as European paper wasp, bumble bees, several bees and flies I haven't IDed yet, a potter wasp, honey bees, yellow jackets, a bald-faced hornet, and an Ailanthus webworm.
9-19-20. Green Brook Park, North Plainfield, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 820 miles total
I hadn't been to this little park in 5 years, and back then I had stayed by the brook, but there is a little pond and a very old public spring in the back that I explored today. Interesting finds included waterchestnut, blue dasher, a bullfrog, mud plantain, a very large puffball, water parsnip, nodding bur marigold, lizard tail, swamp smartweed, spanish needles, a mayfly, and a lanterfly
9-20-20. Scranberry Coop, Lake Aeroflot, and Cranberry Lake, Andover and Byrum, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 820.75 miles total
I took all three girls to Sussex County today. We stopped at a consignment shop, with an old labyrinth outside and lots of weedy shrubs. But the point of the trip was to go to Lake Aeroflot where I had once seen water smartweed. It only grows in glaciated sections of the state and I live in the unglaciated section, so I never see it. But there it was. Other interesting finds were a pearl crescent, watershield, three square, sunfish, mystery snails, a pondweed, turtlehead, and great blue lobelia.
On the way home I stopped quickly at the bank of another pond and found frostweed, carolina rose, and rabbit tobacco.
9-23-20 Duderstadt Farm, Warren, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 821.5 miles total.
I walked at this local farm looking for asters as I'm trying this fall to learn the names of the little white ones. There were frost and common blue and calico and New England, plus what might be small white or might be panicled, I'm not sure.
I come here a lot, so there were not many surprises. I found a few bees, and a jimsonweed I'd not seen here before.
9-24-20 Glenhurst Park, Warren, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 822.5 miles total
This was one of my first long walks after surgery. The park is very wet and I was surprised to find it passable. Goes to show how dry late summer was here. Interesting finds included a dogwood sawfly larva, a great blue heron, a restless bush cricket, and some very brave deer that let me get quite close. This was just the beginning of the fall foliage season and I took lots of photos of pretty leaves.
9-25-20 Tullo Rd., Martinsville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 822.75 miles total
I was on duty today so didn't go far. No surprises here but a lot of smart weeds and asters and a beautiful day to get outside.
9-26-20. Mountainview Park, Middlesex, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 823.25 miles total
Molly, Katie and I walked at this park by a brook that I'd not been to in years. I remembered it as more interesting than it was, and everyone was in a grumpy mood, not our best outing. Someone had dumped three (smelly) deer carcasses along the trail, as well.
I did find a whole bunch of crested elsholtzia which is something I very rarely find (and this was budding, which was new for me).
9-27-20. Gilbride Rd., Martinsville, NJ; Pacer's Field, Dailey's Pond, Causeway Park, and Grekoski Park, South River, NJ; Capik and Raritan Bay Parks, Sayreville, NJ; and Lawrence Harbor, Waterfront, and Cheesequake Parks, Old Bridge, NJ. 2. 75 miles today, 825 miles total.
My biggest single day ever on iNat. The weather was beautiful and I drove around Middlesex County hitting many parks I'd never visited before (and a few I had). Got stung by a bee but otherwise had a great time.
Highlights included tons of march flies, marsh elder, persimmon in fruit, glaucous greenbriar, mountain laurel, black huckleberry, sarsaparilla, rugosa rose, snakecotton, buttonweed, Carolina Euthamia, cocklebur, saltwort, sandburs, waterchestnut, saltmarsh aster, winged pigweed, thick lipped drill, sandmat, the tiniest horseshoe crab I've ever seen (about the size of a half dollar), sea rocket, camphorweed, prostrated vervain, a roadkilled racoon, cloudy winged mining bee, willow oak, familiar bluet, autumn meadowhawk, false pimpernel, spikerushes, a solitary sandpiper, far eastern smartweed, Spanish needles, bullfrog, my first nodding lady's tresses, black chokeberry, swamp loosestrife, Virginia st. John's wort, sensitive pea, parrot's feather, three-square, Virginia pine, a sunfish, blue dasher, yellow legged mud dauber, great egret, and great blue heron. It was quite a day.
9/16/20. Quarry Rd, Adamant, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 2817.3 miles total.
Categories: insects, leafminers
This afternoon I met up with 2 of my friends for a bug walk along Quarry Road in Adamant. We met at the gate at the end of the road and walked towards Adamant center. We found autumn meadowhawk, brown-hooded owlet caterpillar, Nabis, spreadwing, pale green assassin bug, tricolored bumblebee, bald-faced hornet, fall webworm caterpillar, rhododendron leafhopper, hickory tussock caterpillar, winter firefly, ground beetle, augochlorine swat bee, white flies, Machimus sadyates flies (mating), dark paper wasp, Eushistus bug, crescent butterfly, and Lygus bug. I also found some galls on flat-topped aster and leafminers on virgin’s bower, goldenrod, burdock, fleabane, wild sarsaparilla, bracken fern, colt’s foot, honeysuckle, white sweetclover, apple, cultivated sunflower, and lamb’s quarters.
In the evening I went out to check my blueberry bushes for any last berries before removing the netting for the year. I was quite distressed to find a dead ruffed grouse caught in the netting. Oh dear! I also found a red-humped caterpillar and pure green sweat bee, plus leafminers on hawthorn and bunchberry.
I loved your stories from this month, from a 50th birthday trip to a waterfall to a Big Day with persimmons. I never knew that kudzu smells like grape jelly. Thankfully, I’ve never seen any. Congrats on the hybrid smartweed, what a cool find! Your trip to the mouth of the Raritan sounds fascinating with all those shells and shore plants. As for seeing several Bidens, I tripped over that one. I guess back in September that had a different meaning. Sorry to hear about the ant bites and mosquito bites. Back when we lived in a 4th floor apartment in Dubai, we had tiny ants that would bite me whenever I sat on the floor. I would get huge long-lasting welts, but they wouldn’t bother anyone else. Some sort of hypersensitivity, I guess. As for Lake Aeroflot…you’ve got to be kidding! How did that name come about? Do you know if the glaciated distribution of water smartweed is more widespread. We certainly have a lot of that around here, but then we were all glaciated.
9/17/20. Robinson Hill Rd trails, Calais, VT. 1.6 miles today, 2818.9 miles total.
Categories: leafminers
This afternoon I took a walk down the trail by Robinson Hill Rd looking for leafminers in the rain. I had a grand safari and found leafminers in basswood, sugar maple, trembling aspen, beaked hazelnut, Canada mayflower, red raspberry, beech, wild sarsaparilla, jewelweed, snakeroot, fleabane, Indian tobacco, and wild lettuce, so much to share in my online class with Charley Eiseman.
I so envy you your classes in Maine, even now the virtual ones. Someday I hope my life schedule will work out for me to spend a week up there learning something in depth; I have my eye on the year my youngest heads to college.
9/18/20. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT & Chickering Bog, Calais, VT. 3.3 miles today, 2822.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, leafminers
This morning I went down to North Branch Nature Center for their weekly birdwalk. There were about 8 of us, all properly masked and distanced. Towards the end of the walk, I got to talking with one of the other walkers, a relatively new guy to town named Richard. He has set microphones up on the roof of his house in Montpelier to record migrating bird calls at night. Then he analyzes the spectrographs to identify the birds. I haven’t seen spectrographs since grad school at Cornell when I visited my fellow grad student friend Alice in her lab. Richard mentioned that he studied linguistics at Edinburgh. That’s where Alice landed! Sure enough, he studied linguistics with Alice in Edinburgh, but now he’s applying all that knowledge about spectrographs to birds. Birds today at the nature center were northern flicker, scarlet tanager, yellow-rumped warbler, blue jay, gray catbird, song sparrow, goldfinch, white-throated sparrow, robin, white-breasted nuthatch, common yellowthroat, hermit thrush, chickadee, yellow-bellied sapsucker, phoebe, ruby-crowned kinglet, and cedar waxwing. Other animals were common aerial yellowjacket, tarnished plant bug, yellow-collared scape, and red squirrel.
In the afternoon I went up to Chickering Bog for a leaminer walk. I had great success finding leafminers, so I didn’t get far at all up the access trail. I found basswood leafminer, cottonwood leafminer, and more leafminers on cherry, bracket, beech, yellow birch, red osier dogwood, red raspberry, red maple, bunchberry, whorled wood aster, Lycopus, St Johnswort, and blackberry. I also found autumn meadowhawk, winter firefly, oblique banded pondfly, a Euschistus bug, hermit thrush, and white-throated sparrow. Roadkill was a dead toad.
9/19/20. Montgomery, VT. 1.5 miles today, 2823.7 miles total.
Categories: insects, leafminers
This afternoon I drove up to Montgomery to meet up with members of the Vermont Entomological Society for a field trip. The trip had been advertised as a tour through some private land along the Rushford Valley River, a seldom seen spot. There were about 8 of us on the trip, but the host and his wife were anti-maskers, and the others in the group didn’t see any problem with that and weren’t distancing. The host insisted on car pooling to the field. I balked and ended up riding in the back of his open pickup truck. The field was an old field that maybe had once been an orchard. There was a river nearby but we didn’t go near the river, just followed a mowed trail through goldenrod and common juniper to the apple trees and back. There were a few insects, but nothing I couldn’t have seen in my own old field: black swallowtail caterpillar, woolly bear, milkweed tussock moth caterpillar, honeybee, common ringlet, winter firefly, twice-stabbed stinkbug, clouded sulphur, striped leafhopper, spreadwing, Graphocephala gothica leafhopper, Haploa moth caterpillar, green crab spider, bald faced hornet, Pyrobombus bumblebee, Melanoplus grasshopper, small milkweed bug, and Asian ladybeetle. Leafminers were columbine, raspberry, colt’s foot, trembling aspen, red maple, milkweed, sugar maple, goldenrod, bracken fern, yellow birch, honeysuckle, blackberry, paper birch, virgin’s bower, chokecherry, and flat-topped aster. Other animals were garter snake and hermit thrush. There was a huge patch of Japanese knotweed where I parked my car. I found some eyebright in the field which caused quite a stir because the other folks on the trip had never noticed it before. I also found some Polytrichum pilifera in the dry sandy soil along the trail.
9/20/20. Sodom Pond Rd, Adamant, VT & Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 3.4 miles today, 2827.1 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, leafminers
This morning I went down to Adamant to do my weekly bird walk along Sodom Pond. But first I stopped at the bottom of our driveway to check out the dead short-tailed weasel that my husband had found. A mystery—how did it die? It didn’t look like roadkill. Down in Adamant I found chipping sparrow, chickadee, Canada goose, flycatcher, mourning dove, gray catbird, wood ducks, mallards, crow, turkey vulture, goldfinch, yellow-rumped warbler. I also found a midge, autumn meadowhawk, and wolf spider, plus leafminers on sugar maple, blackberry, mint, lilac, burdock, and black cherry. Roadkill was a red eft.
In the afternoon I took a hike up Peck Hill while my husband rode his unicycle on the same route. I found leafminers on golden Alexanders, beaked hazelnut, heart-leaved aster, honeysuckle, basswood, Virginia creeper, trembling aspen, grapes, Joe Pye weed, and avens. I also found woolly alder aphids, great tiger moth caterpillar, pale green assassin bug, Schizophoran fly, orbweaver, and aster treehoppers. Birds were robin, hermit thrush. And roadkill was a deer mouse.
9/21/20. Center Rd trail, East Montpelier, VT. 1 miles today, 2828.1 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, insects, galls
This afternoon I took a walk through the woods on the East Montpelier trail system, starting at Center Rd and heading east. I found leafminers on chokeberry, maple, grape, basswood, beech, bracken, yellow birch, red maple, black cherry, Canada mayflower, black raspberry, honeysuckle, calico aster, goldenrods, American elm, violet, sensitive fern, helleborine, jewelweed, red raspberry, bur marigolds, burdock, and buckthorn. I also found pale green assassin bug, stilt bug, and gold-striped leaftier. Plus galls on striped maple and elm.
9/22/20. Calais Town Forest, Calais, VT. 0.9 miles today, 2829 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, insects, galls
This afternoon I went hunting leafminers in the Calais Town Forest near the cedar swamp. I found miners in lilac, chokecherry, purple loosestrife, goldenrod, maple, jewelweed, asters, alternate leaved dogwood, chokecherry, red maple, yellow birch, black cherry, blackberry, helleborine, swamp saxifrage, water forget-me-not, and wild sarsaparilla. I also found fall webworm caterpillar and tufted thyatirine caterpillar. Galls today were dogwood eyespot gall, speckled tar spot, and a meadowsweet gall.
9/23/20. Alburg Dunes State Park, South Hero, VT. 3.4 miles today, 2832.4 miles total.
Categories: insects, leafminers, galls, birds, odd plants
This morning I drove all the way to Alburg Dunes State Park in South Hero to collect some weather observations in their black spruce swamp and along the dunes. I also took some observations in adjacent sections of Phragmites swamp and a native grassland swamp. I had a fabulous time looking for insects and leafminers. I found --Systena beetle, honeybee, common eastern bumblebee, eastern tailed blue butterfly, Ichneumon wasp, spotted cucumber beetle, Noctuid moth, green stink bug, transverse-banded flower fly, Euodynerus foraminatus wasp, Zadontomerus bee, clover leaf weevil, Pyrobombus bumblebee, spotted tussock caterpillar, Podisus bug, red-legged grasshopper, and Virginia creeper sphinx caterpillar. I found leafminers on bur marigold, goldenrods, thimbleberry, elm, poison ivy, staghorn sumac, grapes, trembling aspen, buckthorn, basswood, shagbark hickory, silver maple, cottonwood, and buttonbush. Galls today were dogwood eyespot gall midge, ash bead gall mite, grape stem gall, poplar vagabond aphid, alder tongue gall, and honeysuckle aphid gall. There were several birders in the park, but I didn’t take time to hunt out the birds, plus it was late morning by the time I arrived. Still I managed to spot bluejay and white-throated sparrow. Odd plants of the day were purple loosestrife, rough cocklebur, Phragmites, asparagus, poison sumac, and marsh fern. I also found a dead star-nose mole in the trail.
9/24/20. Vermont State House, Montpelier, VT. 1.1 miles today, 2833.5 miles total.
Categories: insects, leafminers, galls
This afternoon I met up with my two friends at the State House for a bug walk through the State House grounds and secret garden. In past walks through the secret garden, which is a little garden of native plants on the hillside behind the cafeteria, we caused a bit of a stir. Everyone in the cafeteria can see into the gardens, and there are meeting rooms right beside the cafeteria with large picture windows facing the tiny garden. So when the State House is in session, we have made quite a scene and distraction as we inspect plants for bugs just a few feet from the windows. But today, the State House was eerily quiet since everyone is still working from home. We found honeybee, Augopostomon bee, dark paper wasp, spurred carpenter bee, thread-waisted wasp, common eastern bumblebee, and eastern yellowjacket, plus red-legged grasshopper, greenbottle fly, eastern boxelder bug, Cryptocephalus beetle, mealybugs, Setanta compta wasp, Asian lady beetle, Theronia wasp, swamp milkweed leaf beetle, filmy dome spider, mosquito, eastern harvestman, giant eastern cranefly, funnel weaver, pale green assassin bug, cobweb spider, entelegyne spider, American nursery web spider, Ceuthophilus cricket, and bronzed cutworm moth. We had quite a good time sorting through the spider webs in the corners by the cafeteria windows. That’s where we found the camel cricket. I also found leafminers on sugar maple, staghorn sumac, grape, musk mallow, honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, bracken, fragrant sumac, winterberry, dogwood, coltsfoot, red oak, phlox, snakeroot, and fly honeysuckle. I also found galls on grape and blueberry. On the way back to my car I found a dead Boyeria darner on the sidewalk.
9/25/20. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT & Cranberry Meadow, Woodbury, VT. 1.7 miles today, 2835.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, leafminers, galls
This morning I went down to the nature center for their weekly birdwalk. We were about 10 people this morning. The birds were a bit thin, but we managed to find common yellowthroat, crow, white-throated sparrow, goldfinch, chickadee, yellow-bellied sapsucker, downy woodpecker, robin, yellow-rumped warbler, Canada goose, northern parula, Cape May warbler, goldfinch, Lincoln’s sparrow, savannah sparrow, purple finch. We did quite a bit of sparrow watching by the community gardens, where the sparrows like to glean off the sunflowers. Other finds for the morning were Graphocephala gothica leafhopper, red squirrel, and leaf miners on lamb’s quarters and columbine.
In the afternoon I went up to Cranberry Meadow with my husband and kayaked the perimeter while he rode his unicycle along the road. I was searching for leafminers around the pond, but only found miners on bush honeysuckle and chokecherry. There were plenty of spiders and insects, though. I found striped fishing spider, autumn meadowhawk, Tetragnatha, marbled orbweaver, and Pyrobombus bumblebee. I found willow beak gall and willow apple gall and a painted turtle as well.
9/26/20. Robinson Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 2.6 miles today, 2837.8 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, insects, galls
This morning I met up with 4 friends at Kent’s Corner to walk along Robinson Hill Road. It was a bright sunny day, with foliage approaching peak, simply gorgeous. I found leafminers on sugar maple, honeysuckle, black cherry, trembling aspen, Amelanchier, coltsfoot, burdock, elm, silky dogwood, chokecherry, rose, goldenrod, sensitive fern, basswood, red raspberry, and Joe Pye weed. I also found a moth fly, woolly bear, and caddisfly. Galls today were dogwood eyespot gall, speckled tar spot on striped maple, and sumac apple gall.
In the evening in Charley Eiseman’s online leafminers class, Charley confirmed that he has found relatively few leafminers around ponds. It seems the woods are where to go for seeking leafminers.
I don't mind anti-maskers not wearing masks outside; I can just stand farther away from them. But to be forced into a closed space with them is upsetting. I'm glad you were able to ride in the bed. Eyebright would cause a stir with me as well, as I've never seen it. And I love the image of everyone working in the state house watching you look for bugs (and probably trying to figure out what the heck it was you are doing). Some day we'll be back to normal! Interesting about leafminers by ponds. I've found lots in wet locations, but I'm not sure about pond edges themselves, hmm....
9/27/20. Adamant, VT & Groton State Park, Groton, VT. 3.1 miles today, 2840.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, leafminers, galls
This morning I went for a bird walk in Adamant along Sodom Pond. I found yellow-rumped warbler, mourning dove, blue jay, purple finch, Canada goose, wood ducks, great blue heron, pied-billed grebe, chickadee, raven, and cedar waxwing, plus rough stink bug and honeybee. I also found a gall on alder. Roadkill was a frog/toad.
In the afternoon I went up to Groton with my husband so he could ride the rail trail on his unicycle. Almost as soon as I arrived, I came across a woodcock in the trail. Insects for the day were Archytas fly, dark paper wasp, pale green assassin bug, six-spotted orbweaver, hemlock looper, and bald-faced hornet. My main goal was leafminers. I found leafminers on milkweed, bush honeysuckle, red osier dogwood, serviceberries, beaked hazelnut, sugar maple, mountain maple, wild sarsaparilla, whorled wood aster, Canada mayflower, wrinkle-leaved goldenrod, dwarf raspberry, red raspberry, chokecherry, beech, witchhazel, yellow birch, balsam poplar, early goldenrod, silverrod, checkerberry, willow, bush honeysuckle, yellow birch, rosette grass, helleborine, big-toothed aspen, meadowrue, and heart-leaved aster. While searching for miners, I also found speckled tar spot, blackberry leaf gall, witch-hazel cone gall, and cinquefoil leaf gall. Lying dead in the trail was a northern short-tailed shrew.
9/28/20. East Montpelier Town Forest, Adamant, VT. 1.9 miles today, 2842.8 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, insects, birds
This afternoon I explored some East Montpelier Town Forest trails, starting at Haggett Rd. I found leafminers on burdock, beech, honeysuckle, sugar maple, yellow birch, black cherry, wild sarsaparilla, goldenrods, violets, red maple, helleborine, dwarf raspberry, bunchberry, Indian tobacco, swamp aster, dock, willow, gray birch, chokecherry, and trembling aspen. I also found Podisus bug, confused Haploa moth caterpillar, yellow sawfly larva, and black sawfly larva, plus a hairy woodpecker and a crow. I also collected quite a few tiny red maple leaves to press for crafts over the winter.
9/29/20. Owl’s Head, Groton State Park, Groton, VT. 0.8 miles today, 2843.6 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, insects, birds
This morning my husband and I headed up to Groton, he with his unicycle, me with my camera. Today I drove up to the Owl’s Head parking lot for a walk, but instead of going up to the Owl’s Head summit, which I knew would be crowded, I headed down the trail towards New Discovery campground, but just a little ways because I was finding lots of leaf miners. I also came across a group of teenagers from St. Johnsbury Academy on a field trip enjoying hide and seek amongst the trees. And then along came a neighbor from Adamant who I hadn’t seen in months, with his daughter who is visiting from Oregon. It was great to catch up with them. The woods were aflame with color, peak foliage at its best. I found leafminers on sugar maple, whorled wood aster, Amelanchier, beech, yellow birch, hobblebush, wild sarsaparilla, bunchberry, and violets. Insects were Aneurhynchus wasp, pale green assassin bug, aphids, filmy dome spider, and a pitch black collared ant.
9/30/20. Robinson Hill trails, Calais, VT. 1 mile today, 2844.6 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, galls, insects
This afternoon it was raining when I went out for my walk. I took my underwater camera and went leafmining along the Robinson Hill trail starting at Curtis Pond. I didn’t go far, just to the spot where I turned around last week when I started from the top of the trail. I found mines on trembling aspen, willows, alternate leaved dog wood, sugar maple, yellow birch, mountain ash, asters, elm, thimbleberry, cottonwood, Canada mayflower, jewelweed, helleborine, speedwell, Solomon’s seal, and willow. I also found dogwood eyespot gall, speckled tar spot, and American tar spot, a good day for fungus galls I guess. Insects today were few, but I managed to find pale green assassin bug and a white fly.
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