July 2021: Describe your walk by adding a comment below

7/1/21. Adamant, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 3356.0 miles total.
Categories: birds and arthropods

This morning I went down to Adamant for my birdwalk. I started with a jaunt up Quarry Rd, where I found some wood ducks and 2 great blue herons on Adamant pond, a mourning dove, a phoebe, a family of blue jays in a tree, a catbird, a robin, some goldfinches, and a red-winged blackbird. I recorded one of the several Nashville warblers in the woods along the road, and also an ovenbird. After that I walked along Sodom Pond, where I saw wood ducks, a mallard, a mourning dove, a hummingbird, a kingbird, a phoebe, lots of catbirds, some robins, some waxwings, some goldfinches, a song sparrow lots of red-winged blackbirds, and some common yellowthroats. I recorded a warbling vireo, some bullfrogs, and some green frogs. I also played the Virginia rail song on my phone just once at the location where I heard the rail last week, but there was no reply from the marsh.

In the evening it was a little cool at the moth lights, but I still found a cherry scallop shell, an underwing, an angle, a birch leaffolder, several Crambids, 3-4 kinds of leafhoppers, 3 kinds of caddisflies, several midges, and several other small flies.

7/3/21. Lightening Ridge Rd & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.4 miles today, 3356.5 miles total.
Categories: birds and arthropods

This morning I went up to Lightening Ridge Rd to look for birds. When I first got up, the sky was quite dark, so I waited until 6:30 before going out. I managed to walk all of 0.4 miles before it started to rain and I headed back. I found mourning doves, a hummingbird, a pair of hairy woodpeckers, some phoebes, a kingbird, some red-eyed vireos, a blue jay, some chickadees, some catbirds, some robins, some waxwings, some goldfinches, some song sparrows, an indigo bunting and a common yellowthroat. I recorded a veery and an ovenbird.

My mother and I intended to go out for a walk, but it continued to rain all day. It was still raining and 58F when I went out to check the moth lights. I found a single midge, no moths or leafhoppers.

7/5/21. Chickering Rd, Calais, VT, Cross Vermont Trail, Groton, VT, Jack Hill Rd, Calais, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 7.1 miles today, 3366.0 miles total.
Categories: birds, road crossers, blooms, leafminers, and arthropods

This morning I walked along Chickering Rd looking for birds. No rain, but the sky was quite foggy and the temperature was around 57F. The birds were extremely vocal. I recorded veery, song sparrow, chestnut-sided, hermit thrush, white-throated, blue-headed, northern parula, black-throated blue, black-throated green, ovenbird, chipping sparrow, scarlet tanager, winter wren, and Canada warbler. I managed to see some chickadees, robins, phoebe, waxwings, purple finch, goldfinches, common yellowthroats, a chestnut-sided warbler. A young snowshoe hair came leaping down the road towards me, then stopped and posed for a photo shoot before hopping into the brush. I also found red efts and a millipede crossing the road.

Later in the morning, my husband and I took our tricycle (unicycle and bicycle) down to Groton to explore the cross Vermont trail on the south side of town. The trail is on the old railroad bed so it's quite flat and narrow, but it also serves the houses along it, so it is open to vehicular traffic. Still, there were more bikes than trucks on the trail. I got chased by 2 dogs and barked at by a particularly vicious dog behind a light fence, so I don't see any reason to return to this part of the trail. The weather was still cool (below 60F) and foggy until noon, so there weren't many insects out. I focused on blooms instead and found bird's foot trefoil, red clover, yarrow, meadow rue, 2 kinds of cinquefoil, gray dogwood and black elder. I found galls on poison ivy and white ash, and leafminers on honeysuckle, dandelion, burdock, fleabane, elm, Virginia creeper, grapes, quaking aspen, and wild sarsaparilla.

Late in the afternoon my husband and I went over to a friend's house in Calais with our tractor to grade their driveway. While my husband did the grading, I walked the perimeter of the yard and found a hobomok skipper, a robber fly, a leafminer on balsam poplar, and recorded a common yellowthroat.

In the evening there were only a few moths at the lights. I found an elegant grass veneer, another Crambid, a clover leafminer, several other micros, a small magpie, a small brown beetle, several midges, a potato leafhopper, and a whitish leafhopper

7/7/21. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT, Heaton Woods, Montpelier, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 1.7 miles today, 3372.5 miles total.
Categories: birds and arthropods

This morning I walked along Peck Hill Rd looking for birds. A pair of great blue herons flew overhead. I also saw the kingfisher, a phoebe, some kingbirds, some crows, some starlings, some robins, some waxwings, some song sparrows, and some red-winged blackbirds. At the point where the road crosses the brook, there were lots of warblers in the trees, including some yellowthroats, some redstarts, and a yellow warbler. I found a tree with a noisy sapsucker chick begging for food.

Later in the morning, my husband and I drove into Montpelier. While he rode the bike trail on his unicycle, I met up with Eve and Ed for our bug walk. We inspected the parking lot at Heaton Woods and neighboring gardens for pollinators and other arthropods. There is a large patch of hemp dogbane on the edge of the lot so we checked it closely for bees, hoping to find the specialist bees that frequent it. However, the weather was cloudy and getting cooler, threatening rain. Not many bees or other insects were flying. Still, we managed to find a few bees, including a sweat bee. We also found a large blue-black wasp and a thread-waisted wasp, as well as a Crambid moth, an Asian beetle, and some Asian ladybugs. In the surrounding gardens we found some flies and bugs. I found leafminers on Virginian creeper, grape, and sunflower.

In the evening there was very little action at the lights, probably because I didn't make it out until after they shut off. I found a sphinx (walnut sphinx?) and a Noctuid.

7/9/21. Peck Hill & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 3.3 miles today, 3375.9 miles total.
Categories: leafminers and arthropods

It was raining again this morning so I skipped the morning bird walk. By afternoon the rain had finally cleared so my husband and I went out for a trip up Peck Hill. He rode his unicycle while I searched for leafminers on foot. I was having such a good time that I kept going beyond my usual turnaround point, all the way to to the top of Peck Hill and out to the end of Fifer's Ride. I haven't done this walk since last year, when I began feeling ill at the top and had to struggle to get home. I was very mindful today of how grateful I am that I am physically able to walk this far. However, on my way back down Peck Hill, my husband showed up with the car to give me a ride home because I wasn't keeping track of the time and it was nearly dinner time. Along the way, I found leafminers on burdock (2 kinds), plantain, goldenrod, wild sarsaparilla, hazelnut, heart-leaved aster, elm, clover, coltsfoot, grape, and Virginia creeper. I also found bees in some fleabane, bumblebees in clover, a few bugs, some crab spiders dining on Syrphids, some Toxomerus flies, a green lacewing, a milkweed beetle, some leaf hoppers, a Hippodromus lady bug, and an Asian ladybug.

In the evening there was some decent action at the moth lights. I found Scoparia, Herpetogramma, maple spanworm, Crambids, some other micros, including a bright red one, a Nabbis bug eating another insect, a lightning bug, a click beetle, a brown weevil, a green immigrant weevil, some midges, and some leafhoppers.

7/11/21. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT, Federal Building, Montpelier, VT, Green Mountain Cemetery, Montpelier, VT, Putnamville, VT, Paine Mountain, Northfield, VT, Four Corners, Berlin, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 4.0 miles today, 3385.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, eye-catching plants, and arthropods

This morning I walked along Pekin Brook Rd looking for birds. I saw a kingfisher on the ridge of the barn, some phoebes, 4 kingbirds flying over the fields near the farm, a blue jay, some robins, some waxwings, a purple finch, a song sparrow, a red-winged blackbird, a grackle, and a common yellowthroat. I recorded a mourning dove, a winter wren, and a catbird.

After breakfast, my husband and I drove down to Montpelier to meet up with our geology class. We began the day at the Federal Building where got out our hand lenses to examine the crystal structure of the serpentine and marble siding, which of course attracted the attention of the guard. After he ascertained that we were not a mob trying to overthrow the government with hand lenses on a Sunday morning, he went back inside the building and we continued marveling at the marble. I also noted a helleborine in full bloom and a red oak popping up under the planted yews.

From the Federal Building, we drove to Green Mountain Cemetery on Route 2 to look at the Moretown formation on the hillside. I also noted some Anomodon attenuatus moss, moneywort in bloom, and butternut in fruit and managed to catch a scorpionfly with my camera.

Our next stop was the falls at Putnamville up Route 12. This was also some of the Moretown Formation, but laced with some interesting dikes. The falls our simply gorgeous, and it was a thrill to be able to explore them since they are on private property (we got permission for our class to visit). I found more Anomodon attenuatus, plus Virginia creeper, Eleocharus, Japanese knotweed, black elderberry, white ash, red maple, Scirpus, milkweed, thimbleberry, and Japanese barberry. I also found a feather, pools filled with tadpoles, a leech, and a snail, plus a bee, a willow leaf beetle, a large dead stonefly, and some other beetles.

After lunch at the Nature Center, we drove down to Northfield to explore one of the quarries. When my husband first started teaching at Norwich University, I took a course every semester, and I would commute to work him. I usually had a free hour or 2 between arrival and my class each day, so I would explore the trails all over Paine Mountain. I loved visiting the 3 abandoned slate quarries on the mountain back then. Today we visited the freshest quarry, the one closest to the paved road. I was quite surprised to see how grown up it has gotten inside the quarry over the 10 years since I last visited. Our class examined the Northfield shale. I also noted chokecherry, honeysuckle, goldenrod, grape, dogwood, Virginia creeper, thimbleberry, raspberry, milkweed, paper birch, rose mallow, horse radish, garden current, autumn olive, Indian tobacco, elderberry, red maple, trembling aspen, white ash, mountain maple, Braun's holly fern, and wall lettuce. I found galls on ash, honeysuckle, aster, and basswood. I also caught a sedgesitter fly, a twelve-spotted skimmer, a green plant bug, a Melanoplus grasshopper, a plant hopper, an Ichneumon wasp, a robber fly, and a fungus gnat.

For our last stop of the day, we drove up to the Four Corners in Berlin, a road cut between the highway and the access road to Berlin Pond. There were examined the slab of Waits River Formation, which one student termed "slimestown" because it doesn't fit the categorization boxes well, neither slate nor limestone. I think Waits River Formation is what we have at our home in Calais. But we don't have any stones on our property because we were under a lake at some point in the near past (even though we're up on a hill). At the Four Corners I noted red pine, Scotch pine, sweet white clover, and chokecherry. Also, a Carolina grasshopper nymph and a chipmunk.

In the evening there was some good action at the moth lights. I found a rosy maple moth, a Haploa, several Noctuids, several Herpetogrammas, several grass veneers, a clover leafminer, a case bearer, several other micros, a robber fly, some midges, a mosquito, a click beetle, a round beetle, a burying beetle, a caddisfly, and some leafhoppers.

7/13/21. Tucker Rd & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 1.4 miles today, 3388.8 miles total.
Categories: birds and arthropods

This morning was overcast when I went out, and by the time I got to the Chickering Bog parking to start my walk, there were raindrops on my windshield. I set out walking anyway, but the rain got heavier and heavier. Fortunately, there is dense tree canopy over Tucker Rd, at least for the first 1/2 mile, so I stayed fairly dry. The birds were quiet and not moving, though, so all I found was a single yellowthroat and I recorded an ovenbird through the raindrops.

In the evening the rain had stopped and I found 4 kinds of Crambids including some elegant grass veneers, an inornate carpet, a black-dotted glyph, a Herpetogramma, a Lymantria dispar (who really needs a common name now that it's no longer a gypsy moth), a case bearer, some plume moths, several plant bugs, lots of midges, a crane fly, some caddisflies including some micros and an extremely smelly burying beetle. I often have lots of moths flying around me when I check the lights. They land on my arms and legs, fly through my hair and land on my face. No problem. But those burying beetles...ugh! They are so very stinky, and this one tonight kept flying at my face and trying to land on it. Yuck!

7/15/21. Adamant, VT, North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2.5 miles today, 3395.8 miles total.
Categories: birds and arthropods

This morning I drove down to Adamant to look for birds. The temperature was already 60F, but it was quite foggy. I couldn't see the pond from 50' away. I recorded an alder fly catcher, a veery, a northern parula, a warbling vireo, a blue-headed vireo, and a song sparrow. I managed to photograph some great blue herons, a goldfinch, some song sparrows, some red-winged blackbirds and some kingbirds.

After breakfast I drove down to the Nature Center in Montpelier to meet Eve and Ed for our weekly bug walk. It took us over a half hour to traverse the first 2/10 mile between the parking lot and the community gardens since there were so many insects to look at in the milkweed corridor. We found bees on sunflowers and black-eyed susans, and a lovely bee with a red abdomen and spots on a buttercup. We also found some milkweed beetles mating, Japanese beetles mating, and box elder bugs mating. And some scorpionflies, grasshoppers, and a harvestman. Chip Darmstadt and his son Sam were banding birds so we got to watch for a bit, along with the Forest Preschool kids. Sam showed us a veery that had been caught in the mist net and had already been banded. Chip showed us the remains of a banded catbird that was dead on the trail. We had hoped to catch some burying beetles working on it, but we must have scared them off.

In the evening the moth lights were active. I had a black-dotted glyph, a green pug, an elegant grass veneer, a jack pine cone borer, a clover leafminer, lots of other micros, a large click beetle, a tiny brown beetle, some midges, some leafhoppers, a bug, and some caddisflies.

7/17/21. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais, VT, North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2.6 miles today, 3402.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, leafminers and galls, arthropods

This morning I walked along Lightening Ridge Rd looking for birds. I found a hummingbird, a chickadee, a catbird, some robins, and several indigo buntings. I also recorded a chestnut-sided warbler, a veery, a Nashville warbler, and an indigo bunting. The birds are noticeably harder to find these days and seem to be calling a little less. We're getting to the time of year when my rudimentary birding skills fall short be being able to find the birds or ID them if I actually manage to see them. I saw my doctor out on his bike this morning and we stopped to chat a bit. He said he's hiking the John Muir trail in California next month. That will be an adventure!

In the afternoon my husband and I drove down to the Nature Center so that he could ride the trails in the hills on his unicycle. I planned to do a bug walk along the lower trails. When we got there it had begun to rain, so I only used my waterproof camera and focused mainly on leafminers and galls. I found leafminers on Virginia creeper, grape, elm, jewelweed, thimbleberry, raspberry, goldenrod, parasol whitetop, honeysuckle, Joe Pye weed, black locust, burdock (2 kinds of miners), dock, plantain, ironwood, and clematis. I found galls on jewelweed, goldenrod, grape, ash, box elder, butternut, and willow. I also found a bumblebee, an Oriental beetle, a Japanese beetle, a willow beetle, some orb weavers, some crab spiders, a Haploa moth, a common whitetail dragonfly, a Syrphid fly, and a lacewing. And a pair of young fawns sheltering under a low hanging tree across the river. Surprising plants of the day were white poplar, Alleghany monkeyflower, and fringed loosestrife.

In the evening we had light rain, which seemed to draw the moths in. I found Scoparia, Herpetogramma, Xanthotype, American idia, a litter moth, Haploa, inornate carpet, Donacaula, elegant grass veneer, black-dotted glyph, a variety of micros, a giant cranefly, and a bug. Plus some midges and leafhoppers, and a spider eating a midge.

7/19/21. Pigeon Pond Rd, Plainfield, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 1.2 miles today, 3404.2 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, galls, and arthropods

This morning we had more rain showers so I skipped the morning bird walk. By afternoon, the skies had cleared. After studying the maps, I decided to explore a new-to-me road in Plainfield. The map showed a large pond on the Plainfield-Groton line called Pigeon Pond. The maps showed no access to the pond, but the satellite maps showed 2 cabins on the pond and a road with grass down the middle. And no iNat observations. I figured I could at least walk the access road down to the pond, so I parked on Maple Hill Rd nearby and started up Pigeon Hill. There were lots of dogs on Pigeon Hill, first a hound lying at a side trail who looked up at me but didn't get up or bark. Then a family of loud dogs behind an electric fence with warning signs and a woman who seemed hostilely friendly. Then a beagle who barked but didn't chase. Dogs always take away from the joy of exploring new roads. I had forgotten how much so since it's been so long since I went exploring. But the next thing I knew, I had come to the end of the road. There was a large gate across the road that said private. So I couldn't get down to Pigeon Pond anyway. Along the way, I found leafminers in colt's foot, burdock, hazelnut, and ash. I also found galls in ash and elm.

There was lots of action at the moth lights in the evening. I found elegant grass veneer, Datana ministra, black zigzag, Herpetogramma, divided Olethreutes, cream-edged Dichomeris, delightful donacaula, Argyrotaenia, unicorn, reticulated fruitworm, Crambids, lacewing, Zanclognatha, micros, leafhoppers, some thin green bugs, midges, and a giant cranefly.

7/21/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3409.3 miles total.
Categories: arthropods

No rain this morning, but the skies were gray and there was quite a bit of fog. I elected to stay home and wait for the sun to come out properly. But it didn't until evening. There were a few visitors at the moth lights, including an angle, a three-spotted fillip, an elegant grass veneer, some other grass veneers, a Scoparia, a looper, and some midges.

7/23/21. Montpelier Bike Trail, Montpelier, VT, Curtis Pond, Calais, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2.0 miles today, 3415.3 miles total.
Categories: birds and arthropods

This afternoon I met up with Eve, Ed, and Melissa for our weekly bug walk. We checked out the weeds along the bike trail, mostly for pollinators, but also for any other arthropods we could find. Right at the parking area we found a field of bird's foot trefoil in full bloom, buzzing with honeybees. We searched for a specialist bee that likes treefoil, but I don't think we found it. There was also some evening primrose and hemp dogbane along the trail, both of which are on our current watch lists for specialists. I found a bee in the primrose, but I don't know if it was the specialist. Also blooming and popular with pollinators along the trail were Queen Anne's lace, white and yellow sweetclover, and fleabanes. We found numerous bumblebees including some Bombus terricola, some sweat bees, carpenter bees, mining bees, grasshoppers, stink bugs, ladybugs, and crab spiders. Ed was wondering out loud if we found some ambush bugs, and boom, right then they started to appear, some of them eating.

In the evening my husband and I met up with 2 friends for a picnic paddle on Curtis Pond. Right near the beginning of our trip up the pond, we came across a family of loons, 2 parents and 2 chicks who swam by close to our boats. Further up the pond, we found lots of ducks (including one who came begging for food while we ate), and a great blue heron.

Later in the evening I had a Northern pine sphinx at my moth lights. Also, green leuconycta, painted lichen moths, a Caenurgina with a bite out of it, a large lace border, some other carpets, Herpetogramma, plenty of micros, some midges, but no leafhoppers tonight.

Reading about how cool it was at the beginning of the month has me jealous; it feels like it's been 90 and humid here forever. I hate walking where there are loose dogs, and even barking ones are rough; there's a pair across the street from me and I can't even get the mail without them telling the whole neighborhood about it.

So glad to hear you are feeling so much better than last year; I remember how little you were able to get out.

Your geology workshop sounds fascinating. I have lived my whole life on a basalt outcropping covered in an orange-ish shale, and am always surprised when I visit places that actually have interesting rocks. I love the idea of a mob with handlenses attacking the capitol, but would be concerned if no guard even bothered to stick his head around the corner and check on you.

I have never smelled a burying beetle, but I would certainly not want one landing on my face! It sounds like you've been finding enough mating bugs lately to re-paper the wall of my office (sadly, Katie is no longer horrified by mating arthrpods, and we have switched back to family photos in here). It's funny how often you get morning rain there; here it's nearly always in the afternooon/evening.

I cannot imagine riding a mountain unicycle; even mountain bikes scare me. And I love that your mother's guest house is a bordello! that sounds like one of those "your mama" insults my children like to trade with one another.

7-5-21. Chimney Rock Reservoir, Martinsville, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 1065.75 miles total
Categories: blooming, fruit, critters.

Katie and I walked the north shore of the local reservoir today. She was mostly focused on birds and found robins, catbirds, turkey vulture, redwinged blackbird, plus some turtles and eastern pondhawks and a litter moth. But the highlight was her first ever green heron.

I was pleased to find ghost pipes, wild licorice, rattlesnake root, Virginia rose, and some hawkweed I can't get to species.

7-6-21. Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 1066.5 miles total
categories: blooming, fruiting, critters.

Katie and I drove out to this park on the mainland right next to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. It was very hot, so we didn't last long, but looked for birds and plants. Katie photographed starlings, mocking bird, blackbird, mourning dove, robin, goose, ring billed dove, cormorants (including a juvenile), laughing gull, mute swans, a crow, herring gull, vulture, pigeon (this is exciting for her; we rarely see them) and the highlight: a spotted sandpiper. She also likes butterflies so there were monarchs, cabbage white, and clouded sulphur plus a brown belted bumble bee.

I got most of those, plus a lacewing larva, oleander aphids, carpenter bee, ant, Asian lady beetle, and black swallowtail. Unusual plants included wild 4-o'clock, Virginia spiderwort, cut leaved blackberry, salsify, and some kind of tall but small sunflowers.

7-10-21. Clover Hill Farm, Fallston, MD. 0.5 miles today, 1067 miles total
Categories: blooming, critters.

Katie, Becca, and I headed to West Virginia for vacation this week, but our first overnight was here at my husband's aunt's horse farm. Katie and I walked around in the evening and took photos. She once again focused on birds and butterflies. There were several nests of barn swallows in the barns, with babies sticking their heads over the edge and parents flying in and out. Also house sparrows, cardinal, blue jay, and kingbirds, plus meadow fritillaries, tailed-blues, cabbage white, pearl crescent, and red spotted purple . And dragonflies: widow skimmer, blue dasher, common whitetail, halloween pennant.

I got nearly all of those, plus snowberry clearwing, tiger swallowtail, clouded sulphur, Japanese beetle, milkweed beetle, eastern pondhawk, amberwing, calico pennant, a bluet, paper wasp nest, and hover flies and honey bees. Aunt Vivian had saved a 17-year cicada for me, and when I went to make dinner, with some purslane from the garden for the salad, I found a miner in the purslane.

Interesting plants included some kind of naiad in the pond, and roundleaved ragwort.

7-11-21. Clover Hill, Monkton, MD, Humpback Bridge, Covington, VA. Sandstone Falls, Sandstone, WV. 1 mile today, 1068 miles total.
Categories: flowering, fruiting, critters.

In the morning I walked through the farm and saw ebony jewelwings, prickly sow thistle, giant ragweed, and the highlight: a female humming bird.

Katie, Becca and I then headed toward West Virginia, stopping at Luray Caverns along the way. We drove through an enormous patch of kudzu (but I didn't stop for photos) and then stopped at a covered bridge with a swimming hole beneath, in western Virginia. Here we found some Lespedeza I don't know, germander, and viper's bugloss. I realized on this trip that the "viper's bugloss" I know from home is not the typical species, but (it turns out) probably E. creticum instead. The "real" stuff was everywhere in West Virginia.

Our last stop of the day was Sandstone Falls, the very top (and southern) end of the New River Gorge. There are boardwalks here and another swimming hole. Katie found some birds and butterflies, but was at least as interested in people watching: she said she never realized that even the little children would have southern accents!

This was the spot with the largest number of unusual and new species for me of the whole trip. I found moonseed, lizard's tail, leafcup (totally new to me), pawpaw, buckeye, yet another unknown Lespedeza, post oak, long leaved bluets (totally new to me), yellow crownbeard (I've only seen it in photos), pipevine swallowtail, lyreleaf sage, thimbleweed, rosinweed (new), carolina ruella (totally new), Torilis, persimmon, coralberry, shrubby st. John's wort, obedient plant, water willow, nodding onion (new), hydrilla, osage orange. Wow.

7-12-21. Cranberry Glades, Hills Creek, Spruce Knob, Canaan Valley, and Blackwater Falls, WV. 2.0 miles today, 1070 miles total.
Categories: blooming, critters

This was the biggest day of our trip. We stopped first at a boardwalk through a bog. The deerflies here were terrible, and Katie was miserable, but she nonetheless found her first magnolia warbler. The drive to here, up US 219 was one of the prettiest I've ever done. Interesting things I found included smooth carrionflower (new), wild raisin (new), greater whipwort, stiff marsh bedstraw, stairstep moss (new to me), tawny cottongrass, mountain maple, false hellebore, yellow false pimpernel, northern bush honeysuckle, white baneberry, marsh marigold, viper's bugloss, heartleaf foamflower, bristly greenbriar (new), scarlet beebalm, Clintonia, pitcher plants, tuberous grasspink, and the bog cranberry (new to me) for which the place is named.

Nearby, we stopped at Falls of Hills Creek. Katie (traumatized by flies) refused to get out of the car, but Becca and I walked down to the falls. I found Fraser's magnolia (new to me), striped maple, plantain-leaved sedge, wild hydrangea, a question mark butterfly, some kind of trillium in fruit, and an Indian cucumberroot.

Next we headed all the way up to Spruce Knob, the high point of WV. There's a nature trail that leads to a little tower at the actual high point. The tower had a sort of tunnel beneath and Katie poked her head in, but got spooked by more flies, and this time moths as well. The flies were just blowflies and the moths were lovely: white-lined blacks, a new one for me. Katie only photographed two things: baby juncos (which we'd never seen as they are winter birds by us) and a female towhee. I found fireweed (new), a currant of some kind, red spruce, Clintonia, Minniebush (I'd never even heard of this one), painted trillium, fringed willowherb, heart-leaved foamflower, Peltigera lichen, American mountain ash (new), viper's bugloss, red elderberry, bristly greenbriar, dewdrop (new), ostrich plume moss (new), and rough hawkweed.

We stopped briefly at Seneca Rocks, but no one felt like getting out, then again at Canaan Valley. Our final real stop was Blackwater Falls, the most impressive falls of the trip. Here I found yellow patches mushrooms, whorled wood aster, some interesting liverworts, and hobblebush.

7-14-21. The Rocks Park, White Hall, MD. 0.25 miles today, 1070.5 miles total.
Categories: blooming, critters.

I checked out a park I'd not been to before, that our aunt didn't know was there, either (I found it on Google). A pleasant walk along a river but the path was blocked by a very recently fallen tree. Just as well as it was still beastly hot and I didn't want to go far anyway. I found ebony jewelwings, extremely tall lettuce of some kind, some flying flower long-horned beetles, two-lined spittlebug, smallmouth bass fingerlings, white suckers, alternate leaved dogwood, hydrilla, common shiners, and, oddly, some presumably escaped Japanese spiraea.

It was so interesting to read your account of West Virginia. So many of the woodland species are familiar to me here, like whorled wood aster, mountain maple, and small cranberry. And then there are the classic southern species, like ironweed. The first and only time I saw that one was on a fateful trip with my parents 10 years ago. We saw it right at the West Virginia border, shortly before we went 4 wheeling in a sedan car and had to get towed out after we got stuck hanging out into a crick. With my dad in dire need of bypass surgery, unable to walk, and me standing on a rock in the crick trying to get enough cell service to explain to AAA where we were. After 10 tries and getting cut off, AAA finally said that the road was impassable and to hang up and dial 911. I just found the photos of the ironweed from that evening and put them in my folder for processing and posting to iNat.

I'm so glad to hear that Katie got her Magnolia warbler. They are such pretty birds! Great wild finds in Adventure Park!

7/28/21. Chickering Bog & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2.5 miles today, 3424.2 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, galls, and arthropods

This afternoon was sunny and 70F, so I went leafminer hunting at Chickering Bog. I found leafminers in practically every plant I saw: goldenrods, parasol whitetop, white snakeroot, wild sarsaparilla, milkweed, trembling aspen, red maple, sugar maple, beech, yellow birch, alder, bunchberry, red osier dogweed, alternate-leaved dogwood, and more. I found galls on ash and meadowsweet. The mountain holly and blueberries were full of fruit. Indeed, there were more blueberries than I have ever seen before there, a bumper crop. I found bladderwort and swamp goldenrod blooming at the bog. There were only a few dragonflies, with no elfin skimmers. I found common whitetail and some eastern forktails mating. I also saw a young couple with a young baby and then a woman hiking alone.

In the evening I had a few moths at the lights, including a unicorn, 4 kinds of grays, Herpetogramma, painted lichen moth, lesser maple spanworm, gray spruce looper, Furcula, and some midges. It was rather cool, just 52F.

7-20-21. Duke Island Park, Bridgewater, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 1072.5 miles total
Categories: birds, bugs, blooms

Katie, Carl, and I walked by the dam here on another very hot and humid day. Once again there were many catbirds, but also a great blue heron and a great egret. There were a ton of lanternflies, a gnat ogre (great name), several tiny bees, a hoverfly, two kinds of Dancers, a white tail, a firefly, and a rove beetle which was on a dead shrew. We saw deer as well.

Blooming were crown vetch, clover, horsenettle, knapweed, Queen Anne's lace, Indian tobacco, monkeyflower, and poke.

7-22-21. Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY. 1.0 mile today, 1074 miles total.
Categories: blooming, critters.

Katie, Carl, and I took the train and subway into the city to meet a friend of Katie's that she's only ever met online. While they wandered around, talking, I hung out by the boathouse, taking pictures. There were amberwings, dashers, wood ducks and pigeons. The high light for me, though, was water fringe, a new-to-me species. Other interesting plants included a paper mulberry, and a blooming buttonbush (I've heard people call it the COVID bush as the flowers look a bit like models of coronaviruses.

7-25-21. Camp Mason and Delaware Water Gap, Hardwick, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 1075.5 miles total
Categories: flowers, bugs.

I dropped Katie off at camp about an hour from home today, but we were early and needed a bathroom, so drove up into the Delaware Water Gap to the historic Millbrook Village. There I found some common weeds on the way to the bathrooms: poke, plantain, Virginia creeper, etc.

I dropped her at camp and got to walk up to her cabin and back, and again the weeds were very typical, burning bush, hickory, sassafras, bedstraw, garlic mustard, ragweed.

Then I drove to the nearby powerline cut and walked very briefly (as the grass was very overgrown, and I didn't relish plowing into it) here there was a black swallowtail and a pearl crescent, plus bergamot, Queen Anne's lace, clover crownvetch, smartweed, dodder, fleabane, yarrow, knapweed, mullein, St. John's wort, self heal, woodsorrel, and pimpernel.

Next stop is called the Rocks, but I didn't go far up them. Here there was black cohosh in bloom, as well as white vervain and white avens, ghost pipes, and Indian tobacco.

Across the street I walked down an old road and found woodland sunflower, thimbleflower, cypress spurge, soapwort, and a nice banded net-wing beetle.

7-27-21, Washington Valley Park, Martinsville, NJ. 1.0 miles today, 1076.75 miles total
Category: whatever caught my eye

Chuck and I took a brief walk here on another sweltering afternoon. At least it's shady. I found ebony jewelwings, a hairy woodpecker, several Russula mushrooms, smartweed, stickseed, and Indian tobacco in bloom, Pyrola, sanicle, mugwort, and heal all in fruit.

7/29/21. Adamant, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.9 miles today, 3425.1 miles total.
Categories: arthropods

This morning I met up with Eve and Ed down in Adamant for our weekly bug walk. I found them inspecting the bell flowers in front of the church for bees. @beeboy had suggested watching bell flowers for some specialist bees. We found a large native bee, a Xanthosarus, in the bell flowers, as well as some sweat bees. Ed and his wife would like to plant a tree in their front yard to replace the Norway maple that died a couple years ago. They had asked me to show them some trees that their nurseryman had suggested. One of the trees on the their list was a swamp white oak, and there is a magnificent swamp white oak in front of the church, the only swamp white oak I know of in the area. We also looked at some young swamp oaks and bur oaks planted across the street. We wandered through the gardens behind the music school's dining hall and up onto the hill over the ponds so we could look at more bur oaks and some sycamores. On the way, we found lots of bees, wasps and other pollinators, including some blackjackets, some cuckoo wasps, some paper wasps, furrow bees, sweat bees, and honeybees. We found grasshoppers, crickets, Japanese beetles, bugs, violet dancers, ebony jewelwings, a native ladybug, some mating syrphids,and even a green frog down by the stream.

In the evening at the lights I had a furcula, a unicorn, a gray, a carpet, several Herpetogramma, a divided olethreutes, a painted lichen, a Coleophora, some midges and leafhoppers.

7/31/21. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2.6 miles today, 3428.7 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, galls, and arthropods

This afternoon my husband and I went to the North Branch Nature Center, he to try out the new disk brake he has installed on his unicycle, and me to explore some of the new mountain bike trails that have been developed over the past few years. The trail network has grown quite a bit since I last spent some time here. It has become a destination for mountain bikers. The trails crisscross the hillside between the North Branch river and North street, and they connect to the old Morse Farm ski center trails in winter for skiing. The ski center shut down a few years ago due to several years of lack of snow. Now volunteers for the city are grooming the trails through the park for skiing in winter and have gained permission to groom the old ski center trails as well. What a bonanza of free trails, year round! Meanwhile, I went hunting for leafminers and galls. I found these woods quite full of invasives as compared to the woods I walk in in East Montpelier and Calais. And there is the constant rumble of traffic on Rt 12 down below. I found leafminers in jewelweed, goldenrods, asters, blackberry, thimbleberry, burdock, boneset, Joe Pye weed, and Clematis, and galls on willow, trembling aspen, blackberry, white ash, and box elder. In the clearings, I found some blooming persicaria with green sweat bees and square-headed wasps. I also recorded a hermit thrush and a black-throated green warbler.

In the evening at the moth lights I had a gray spruce looper, some other loopers, a painted lichen, an elm spanworm, a Herpetogramma, several Noctuids, an unadorned carpet, a bristly cutworm, some micros, and some midges.

7-29-21. Groton, Mystic, and Milford Point, CT. 2.25 miles today, 1081.25 miles total
categories: critters, interesting plants.

We spent the night in Groton and then came home along the Connecticut coast, making 4 stops.

First was Fort Griswold in Groton, where I found panicled hydrangea and swallowwort plus tons of cicada killers and a small milkweed bug.

Next was the Submarine Force Museum. This is right next to a military base, so I asked permission before taking photos along the cliffs at the edge of the parking lot. This was granted, but I was not allowed to face north, toward the base. I found pineweed here, along with blue toadflax, orache, ebony spleenwort, and slender lespedeza, plus hackberry nipple galls, and, oddly, a mute swan in the Thames River. As I was finishing up, someone pulled up in a pickup truck and pointed out a deer with only one (big) antler. I guess the other fell off. But it was due north, right in front of the base, and so I couldn't photograph it. I'd never seen a one-antlered deer before.

Next we went to Mystic. While there, Chuck took me out in a rowboat, where I saw cormorants. Other finds here were gutweed, knotted wrack, more orache, Mexican tea, white stonecrop, and Montauk daisy.

Finally, on the way home, we stopped at the Connecticut Audubon Sanctuary at Milford Point. The highlight here was a pair of large, odd-looking birds that turned out to be juvenile yellow-crowned night herons. We also saw martins, osprey, terns, plus European oysters and a yellow legged mud dauber. Interesting plants were germander, seablite, sea lavender, searocket, and seaside pea.

7-31-21. Mt. Pocono, Tobyhanna, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Rickets Glen, and Millersburg, PA. 1.5 miles today, 1082.75 miles total

With all four children away from home, I set out on a trip all by myself into northeastern Pennsylvania. First stop was the welcome center in Stroudsburg. The highlight here was musk mallow, though post oak and catnip are also unusual for me.

Next I stopped at "the Knob" in Mt. Pocono. This is the edge of the Pocono plateau and has a lovely view back toward the Delaware Water Gap. Here there were American ladies and a duskywing , plus bumblebees, all on knapweed. There was also bear oak, an odd one for me.

Next stop was Gouldsborough Lake in Tobyhana. Here I spotted both a groundhog and a watersnake. There were lots of interesting plants including maybe broadleaved water milfoil, water shield, striped maple, whorled aster, swamp dewberry, starflower, dwarf St. John's wort, variegated pond lily, three-way sedge, bulbet bearing water hemlock, burreed, skullcaps, bladder sedge, helleborine, Aronia, a bladderwort (without flowers), tree clubmoss, sweet everlasting, interrupted clubmoss, and sumac with aphid galls.

From there I went to Steamtown. There was an interesting flatsedge and blue toadflax in the railbeds there. I went on a trolley ride and photographed lots of plants, but pretty much all common weeds.

Then I stopped at Seven Tubs, part of Pinchot State Forest. It was very crowded but had the prettiest swimming holes I've ever seen. Here there was panicled hawkweed and showy tick trefoil, plus fringed and whorled losestrifes and bluberries with big red galls. But there were also several interesting fungi, though red chanterelles were the only ones I could ID.

From there it was up to a field full of wildflowers (and ripe blueberries) in Ricketts Glen State Park. Salsify, pasture thistle, and lance-leaved coreopsis were the plant highlights, but there were so many butterflies (or "leps" in general): black, spicebush, and tiger swallowtails, wild indigo duskywings, great spangled fritillaries, white spotted skippers (and several other skippers I can't ID), hummingbird clearwings, and my first ever Baltimore checkerspot.

I stopped several places along the road, and saw valerian, purple bladderwort, a common yellowthroat, Heuchera, Ribes, and pale sunflower.

Then just before sunset I took the Millersburg ferry across the Susquehanna River. While waiting for it I found longleaved ground cherry, Mexican tea, water willow, and a little white flower I haven't figured out yet. Growing on the actual ferry itself was some crabgrass and a bracket fungus, plus what I'm told is dobsonfly eggs.