September 2021: Describe your walk by adding a comment below

9/1/21. U32 Trails, East Montpelier, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 1 miles today, 3480.3 miles total.
Categories: nibbles, trees, arthropods, leafminers, and galls

This morning I met up with Eve and Ed for our weekly bug walk. We explored the the trails around U32 highschool and the edges of the playing fields. This school has an amazing amount of athletic fields and woods, plenty of room to spread out during Covid. However, everyone was indoors today. Go figure. We walked the edges of the fields until we came to an entrance to the school trails, leading to the school rope and tree climbing area, an incredible resource that was not in use today. We found some grasshoppers, a tree cricket, some common eastern bumblebees, a six-spotted orbweaver, a green caterpillar, some small black fuzzy caterpillars and a hemlock looper moth. I found leafminers on buckthorn, sugar maple, blackberry, red maple, and calico aster and galls on elm, chokecherry, jewelweed, and goldenrod. I nibbled on blackberries, crabapples, hawthorns, rapsberries and a Canada mayflower fruit.

In the evening the temperature was cool (58F) and dry. At the moth lights I had grape looper, hemlock looper, maple spanworm, vagabond grass veneer, large Noctuid, quakers, black-smudged chionodes, as well as some midges, leafhoppers, balloon flies, and Ichneumon wasps.

9/3/21. Buck Lake, Woodbury, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 3484.7 miles total.
Categories: nibbles, trees, arthropods, leafminers, and galls

This afternoon I drove up to Buck Lake for a leafminer hunt. The CCC camp at Buck Lake is closed for the season, so I was able to walk through the lakefront area down the trail towards Stratton Rd. Or so I thought. Looking at my GPS track afterwards, it seems the logging road I was following was just that, off a bit to the east of where Stratton Rd (trail) might be. The satellite view shows deep forest where I was, but the area had been selectively logged 2-3 years ago. There were lots of raspberries and early succession weeds and scattered standing trees providing some shade. This area definitely deserves some more exploring. I also found motorbike trails winding through it. At one point I heard a dog barking, which made me nervous. But my track shows I was well over a mile from any house, and that makes more nervous--where was that dog? I found a common eastern bumblebee, a tri-colored bumblebee, some wolf spiders, some yellow jackets and calligrapher flies. Near the lake I came across a flock of mixed warblers in the winterberry, including a black-throated green and some confusing fall warblers. I also saw a green frog. I found leafminers in sugar maple, red maple, beech, yellow birch, paper birch, basswood, hazelnut, milkweed, goldenrod, calico aster, blackberry, jewelweed, sedge, Joe Pye weed, boneset, and ragweed, and galls in blackberry, jewelweed, and white ash.

In the evening at the moth lights the temperature was down to 52F. I found a couple of tussocks, quaker, Scoparia, marbled carpet, red twin spot, and Crambids, as well as a spider, cranefly, midges, caddisflies, fungus gnats, and a tree cricket.

9/5/21. Chickering Trails & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 3.2 miles today, 3493.2 miles total.
Categories: nibbles, trees, arthropods, leafminers, and galls

This morning I took a walk along the Chickering Trails, following a trail from Lightening Ridge down to the 2nd pond on Chickering Rd and back. This trail was slightly to the west of the one I walked the other day that came out between the 1st and 2nd Chickering Rd pond. I found leafminers on sugar maple, red maple, mountain maple, goldenrod, jewelweed, Clematis, Joe pye weed, Canada mayflower, rose, buckthorn, black raspberry, and yellow birch and galls on goldenrod. I also found a milkweed tussock caterpillar.

In the evening, the temperature had warmed up to 62F and was quite humid, so there were lots of arthropods at the lights. I had Idias, darts, Noctuids, hemlock looper, looper, Girard’s grass veneer, quakers, marbled carpet, tussock, and red twinspot, plus a mud dauber, Ichneumon wasps, midges, leafhoppers, fruit flies, craneflies, caddisflies, bugs, brown beetle, Melanoplus grasshopper, and a katydid.

09/06/21 at 6:00pm, Roque Bluffs, downeast Maine. I walked the Cow Point road from one end to the other, about 1.4 miles there and back. Mist was beginning to descend and the light was filtered. I saw a Deer with her young, Dot and Spot, the two fawns with spindly legs. Their spots are gone now. They stood in a row across the road looking at me, making eye-contact, waiting for me to take their photo (which will be an iNat observation). At the Sulphur pond I walked through the Spartina grasses to the brackish water to take pictures of the Saiicornia depressa which has turned red (posted on iNat as an observation). On the way back I heard a ruckus high in a birch and saw an adult Black-throated Green warbler and two juveniles, pestering the male, which still seemed to have most of its summer plumage.
I read Erika's post here, I'm so sorry to hear that Eve lost her new camera! She had to wait so long for it to arrive. Maybe the mowers found it- call the Town Office. Maybe, I hope, someone will have rescued it for her.

9/7/21. Chickering Bog & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 3497.8 miles total.
Categories: vertebrates, nibbles, trees, arthropods, leafminers, and galls

This afternoon I took a walk to Chickering Bog. I began by walking straight out to the Bog, not stopping for photographs along the trails that I have walked before this season. I paused to meadowtate for 20 minutes on the boardwalk, where I felt a great wave of gratitude for finally feeling comfortable to be able to walk alone in the woods. For 2 years I felt like I had to stick to the roads in case I had a sudden collapse, but now my health is finally good enough that I can head off onto trails alone. I took the spur trail from the boardwalk, which winds around the far side of the Nature Conservancy property. I don't think I've walked this trail for 4-5 years. It starts off through boreal forest, then rises up to a ridge with some mixed northern hardwoods. I nibbled on checkerberries and a creeping snowberry. I found leafminers on red maple, yellow birch, mountain holly, and black cherry, and galls on white ash. I found a fall webworm and watched whitefaces including a mating pair at the bog. I shot some tadpoles in the bog, and watched a broad-winged hawk overhead, and also caught a yellow-rumped warbler and a robin.

In the evening at the lights the air was dry and about 52F. I found lots of birch leaftiers, a Scoparia, a hemlock looper, a very worn Baltimore Hypena, some quakers, and a diamond-backed Epinotia. I also found a mayfly, some caddisflies, midges, katydid, Melanoplus grasshopper, and a tiny white spider.

07 September, 2021. Mowry Beach Preserve, Lubec 1.2 mi. and Old Farm Trail on North Lubec Road .6 mi. (bringing miles so far to 3.2). Temperature mid 70s F. Categories: shorebirds, shrubs, wildflowers, Carex, birds, butterflies, insects
This afternoon Wally and I drove to Lubec hoping to see migrating shorebirds. Mowry Beach Preserve, property of the Downeast Coastal Conservancy, is 48 acres of former farmland and a marshy area, gradually filling with diverse shrubs. There is still a cattail marsh, and the preserve is bordered by a sand and stone beach, Canada is visible across the water. A boardwalk crosses the marshy part of the preserve beginning at the edge of town, and ending behind the High School.
We parked at one of two small areas provided at the edge of town and headed immediately to the beach where the tide was receding. We didn't pay much attention to anything but the shorebirds. One small flock of peeps kept whizzing by us, landing too far from us for observation, then taking off and then approaching us and, sometimes, landing closer. Once they flew right into us, and I almost stepped on a bird! "We" are not patient (not "I", I'm preoccupied taking photos of rockweed or a volcanic or glaciated rocks on this fascinating beach, so I'm moving more slowly than a glacier). Finally we get lucky and the birds are at a reasonable distance. We don't have a 'scope with us, just the binoculars and the camera. We observe aprox. 20 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 3 Sanderlings (larger and paler birds), and at least one Semipalmated Plover (chunky bird with cool facial markings and small bi-colored bill). I put photo of these on iNat.
After being delighted by the flock we moved inland on the short dirt path to the boardwalk. I stopped to admire the area between path and beach, a swath of brilliant goldenrod, beyond it one of tall white Flat-topped Asters, everything punctuated by patches of Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) which is beautiful now with abundant long silky hairs on the seeds. And lovely Canada, our neighbor across the water, inaccessible now due to CoVID19 and its Delta version. We had our masks ready, even on the beach and boardwalk, in case we passed others, and a group of high-schoolers did pass us, all wearing masks. Thank you!
This trail through the marsh, now filling with wetland plants is remarkable for the variety of berry bushes, most were bearing their fruits. Choke Cherry with red berries and the Black Chokecherry (different Genus) with black berries, Wild-raisin (Viburnum cassinoides) with shocking-pink berries, standing above them all. Other shrubs, like Meadowsweet, and the Alders had attractive seedheads. There was also a very cool Carex with long-arching stems bending over the boardwalk so it was easy to examine and photograph its beautiful lance-shaped and slightly inflated perigynia. Possibly Carex folliculata, but I'm a beginner at this ID. The Eagle Hill class in at the end of the month and I'll try to get confirmation then. I didn't see as many insects as I hoped, and the ones that were there were too fast for a photo.
No one in Lubec was open to sell sandwiches on a Tuesday afternoon so we drove to the corner of (the only road out of town, 189 ?) and North Lubec Road where the grocery store deli made us sandwiches to take-out, and we also took out potato chips, and a Wild Maine blueberry scone made by a baker in Lubec :) We drove a short distance up N. Lubec Road to the public park, Old Farm Trail, where the basic trail from the parking area (with water fountain and outhouse) to end of peninsula divides into two parts (mostly in view of each other across a mowed field). Length is .3 and .4 mi. depending on your choice of pathway. There is a picnic table at the end of each trail, and trees and a drop down to the shore. Birds were migrating through the trees, but hard to see. They included a young Cedar Waxwing, Black-capped chickadees, a Yellow-rumped warbler, a possible Red-eyed Vireo, a couple of immature warblers. A fun and busy crowd of birds, and not many IDs. There was also a Bee (Apis) in the Asters and in the grass many of the (possibly) European (also called Marsh) Crane Flies (Tipula paludosa). A Monarch did a fly-over and the grass was a-flutter with Common Ringlets. Although we don't usually do "nibbles", the old farmland provided a hedgerow of apple trees and we each picked an apple- very good-tasting and very nearly ripe.

9/9/21. Calais Town Forest, Maple Corner, & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 3.7 miles today, 3503.2 miles total.
Categories: amphibians, nibbles, arthropods, leafminers, and galls

This afternoon I went up to the Calais Town Forest for a walk before continuing on to Maple Corner to pick up our CSA allotment for the week. Like last week, I walked straight out along the border trail until it ended at the VAST trail, but this time I turned right on the VAST trail. I haven’t walked this section of the trail for about 5 years. Last time I was on this trail, I came out behind a sugar shack on Bliss Rd. But I must have taken a few different turns because this time I came out at the back of a field on County Rd. The trail starts off with a brief section of boreal forest, then becomes rich northern hardwoods with slaty ridges and lots of maidenhair ferns. I must come back here in the spring to check the wildflowers. I found several toads, a spring peeper and several red efts along the trail, and also a milkweed tussock, a pale green assassin bug, a Lygus bug, ants with wings, and several flies. I found leafminers on sugar maple, red maple, milkweed, hop hornbeam, goldenrod, nettles, violets, beech, black cherry, blackberry, wild sarsaparilla, and bracken fern, and galls on trembling aspen and blackberry. Nibbles today were a green apple (bitter and chewy) and a barberry (a little bitter). There was no one else on the trail.

When I got to Maple Corner to pick up the CSA, there was a line, so I got out my camera and inspected the pollinators on the Japanese knotweed along the parking lot. I found yellowjackets, honeybees, and some flies.

In the evening at the lights I had gray spruce looper, hemlock looper, Scoparia, doubtful Apamea, American Idia, Noctuids, Girard’s grass veneer, and vagabond grass veneer, plus caddisflies, midges, leafhoppers, harvestman, large spider in web, brown stinkbug, fruitflies, fungus gnats, and brown lacewing.

9/11/21. Nelson Pond, Calais, VT, Peacham Pond, Peacham, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 6.2 miles today, 3512.5 miles total.
Categories: amphibians, arthropods, leafminers, and galls

This morning I met up with 4 friends for our Saturday morning hike. We walked around Nelson Pond, which is a mid-sized pond sprinkled with cabins around the edges. We started from the boat access area, followed Nelson Pond Rd, then turned left onto Dailey Rd, which is a short dead end private road to the camps on the southern edge. I usually turn around at the end of Dailey, but one of our group said there is a right-of-way across a cabin’s yard that connects up to The Cove Rd, a tiny private road that I had never walked before and accessed a few more hidden camps. There were 4 people sitting out in front of one of the camps at the end of Dailey Rd who confirmed the right-of-way and encouraged us to use it, so this made our walk into a loop. Along the way, I found leafminers on sugar maple, mountain maple, hazelnut, goldenrod, basswood, blackberry, hobblebush, and nannyberry, and galls on alder, blackberry, goldenrod, alternate-leaved dogwood. I nibbled on hobblebush and thimbleberry, both of which are fully ripe right now. I also caught a tricolored bumblebee, pale green assassin bug with breakfast, and a caterpillar.

After lunch, my husband and I drove up to Peacham Pond to try to connect to the end of the trail from Groton State Park that we explored last week. The first road we took down to the pond stopped at the boat access, where we parked and explored the 2 short camp roads, Spur Rd and Onion Rd, he on his unicycle and me on foot. Then we packed up and drove around to the opposite side of the pond to the end of the road there, where we found the trailhead to Lanesboro Rd. A short way down the trail we found the intersection with Blake Hill Rd where we stopped last week. We continued on up the Lanesboro Rd trail, which could probably be navigated on ATVs, but is certainly not drivable with 4WD cars. The trail goes through mixed northern hardwoods, punctuated by granite boulders. I found leafminers on sugar maple, red maple, mountain maple, milkweed, goldenrod, false Solomon’s seal, trillium, beech, basswood, white birch, yellow birch, hobblebush, alternate-leaved dogwood, swamp aster, hazelnut, and sensitive fern, and galls on basswood, striped maple, mountain maple, and alternate-leaved dogwood. I also nibbled on hobblebush berries which are beginning to ripen here.

In the evening at the lights it was about 10 degrees F warmer than last night, so there was a lot more action. I found lots of tussocks, Girard’s grass veneer, Noctuid, carpet, Heterocampa, zale, a gray spruce looper, and a selection of micros, plus midges, leafhoppers, craneflies, caddisflies, fungus gnats, and a tiny Ichneumon wasp.

9/13/21. Chickering Bog & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2.2 miles today, 3515.2 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, leafminers, galls, ferns, nibbles

This afternoon I explored more of the Chickering family trail system, starting at the trail between the 2 ponds on Chickering Rd. I turned left a lot, but not at the intersections that I knew would take me straight back to the Chickering's yard. The trails went through a lovely section of boreal forest, past some vernal pools, through some hardwoods, and just when I thought I was going down the hill towards Sodom Pond Rd, I went over a ridge and found myself in overlooking acres of forested swamp (cedar swamp?). The trail went right through the swamp. I was out of time, so I'm going to have to go back to see the rest of the swamp. On the way back, as a shortcut, I took a trail out past the Chickering's garage behind their house. Maybe that's where I'll start next time. Along the way, I found leafminers on red maple, buckthorn, goldenrod, and white birch. Ferns today included Christmas fern, sensitive fern, hayscent fern, intermediate wood fern, marginal wood fern, staghorn clubmoss and tree clubmoss. I also shot a selection of fungi in the trail. Nibbles today were some partridgeberries.

In the evening at the lights I had -ray spruce looper, false hemlock looper, Noctuid, quaker, fern borer, micros. I also found western conifer seed bug, large grass spider, midges, fungus gnats, caddisflies, harvestman, and brown lacewings.

9/15/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3517.1 miles total.
Categories: arthropods

We had rain most of the day today, sometimes heavy, so I stayed indoors and worked away at my writing projects on the computer, trying to get ahead so that I could take some time off later in the week. In the evening, the rain had cleared, and I had a few insects at the lights. I had false hemlock looper, Noctuids, quaker, plume, and marbled carpet moth, plus lots of caddisflies, with many in 2- or even 3-somes, midges, leafhoppers, fungus gnats, stink bugs, green lacewings, beetles, mayfly, yellow psyillid, Ichneumon wasps, seed bug, big yellow fly with luminous green eyes, and a housefly.

9/17/21. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 2.3 miles today, 3522.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, 100 species in 100 steps, arthropods

This morning I went down to the nature center for a fall migration bird walk led by Chip Darmstadt. There were 6 other birders on the walk. We saw blue jays, kestrel, goldfinches, song sparrow, goose, ravens, crow, black-throated green, black-throated blue, blue-headed vireo, ruby-crowned kinglet, chickadee, Nashville warbler, Tennessee warbler, blackpoll warbler, and hairy woodpecker.

After the bird walk I did my errands in town, then returned to the nature center. I went out to the bench along the river where I had a snack. Then I challenged myself to find 100 species before lunch, taking as few steps as possible from the bench. It took me about 40 minutes to log my 100 species, including blackberry, black raspberry, black willow, box elder, goldenrods, parasol whitetop, white clover, turtlehead, avens, path rush, sedge, meadowsweet, a little brown mushroom and some mosses under a willow tree, bumblebees, calligrapher flies, globe-tailed flies, and other Syrphids, leafminers on black raspberry, goldenrods, avens, and parasol whitetop, and galls on meadowsweet, box elder, and parasol whitetop.

After lunch, I met up with Eve and Ed back at the parking lot for our weekly bug walk. In the next 2 hours we managed to walk about 1/2 mile round trip up and down one of the main trails, checking for insects on the asters and late-blooming goldenrods in the field. We found a seedbug, green bug nymph, ambush bugs, bumblebees, honeybees, paper wasps, yellowjackets, Ichneumon wasps, calligrapher flies, fungas gnats, leaf beetle, and several caterpillars. I also found a leafminer on alder.

In the evening at the lights, the swarms of fungus gnats were back. They were thick enough that it was actually unpleasant to be out, with them flying in my eyes and ears. I found gray spruce looper, false hemlock looper, connected looper, and birch leaftier, as well as a large Ichneumon wasp, leafhoppers, brown beetle, green lacewing, ladybugs, and a large spider. Even the spider did not seem happy with the fungus gnats. When they flew into him, he winced and shuddered.

9/19/2021, to the rocks and back at Cow Point, Roque Bluffs, ME. Aprox. .08 mile,(not counting the part where I got a bit "lost"). Categories: birds, plants, arthropods, minerals
A beautiful morning, 70 F. I met up with Wally down at "the rocks" after getting a bit confused on the rocky slope. There is no real path through the outcrops, glacial erratics and closely packed conifers, mostly Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), and deciduous trees including, Mountain Birch (Betula cordifolia), Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera), and Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides). Twice I ended up at a rocky cliff with no way down but finally found the old Birch with the curved trunk and just below it the bright yellow rope which I can use to slow my descent and avoid pitching down the ravine and into the water below. Wally was already sitting in his favorite niche in the rocks above the water and reported that I had missed a seal. There was a Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis), reported in "Gulls Simplified" (Dunne and Karlson) to be "arguably the most common gull in North America". It was sitting placidly not far from us but after I took a few photos it flew behind the outcrop and was the last bird I saw. Yesterday at this spot a small raft of about 15 Common Eiders had come gliding silently out of the fog, and a Double-crested Cormorant flew over.
I searched the rocks for insects and found two small ants. One was exploring and found what may have been an insect egg and carried it off into a crack in the rocks. Another was traveling up and down, too quickly for photos. There was a single large Drone-type fly hovering at the White Lettuce plant (Nabalus trifoliolatus), which is beginning to look rather sad and well past its bloom. There was not much else nearby, Plantago maritima, and a stunted Solidago sempervirens. The solitary Fly seemed to be the same that I saw yesterday and it persisted in evading me and zipping around so quickly I could scarcely get a look, and although I tried for a photo the result was not at all in focus. There is a wet spot in the rocks below some overhanging soil and tree roots and yesterday I photographed two sedges growing there. They are dry now but still have their perigynia attached. I have not yet managed to ID them.
After photographing the glacial striations and cracks in the rocks (I do this a lot), I sat down against a nice comfy quartz erratic to contemplate the geology. I noticed that the rock right in front of me was very sparkly in the sunlight, and then when I looked closely I could see that there were quite a few small depressions where seawater had splashed and dried and, over time, left traces of salt that no recent rain had yet dissolved. After attempting to capture the sparkles in a photograph I set the camera to "macro" and took several photos. Later when I downloaded the photos it was a nice surprise to see that the sparkles on the dark rock looked like stars in the night sky! And, even more surprising, the salt was closely scattered crystals, perfectly formed, square on two sides like perfect tiny shallow boxes, many with a small depression in the middle of the square. They were beautiful, not at all like I expected, not shaped like table salt, not even like Kosher salt. I liked the salt crystals so much I put the photos on my Facebook and Maine Naturalist pages.
I climbed back up to the house below and along the side of the rock cliff. Near the top, in the shade, growing in moss between tree roots there is a patch of Peltigera, Dog-Lichen, small dark brown lobes about a half centimeter wide with apothecia, orange on top and white underneath, curved at the edges to resemble the shape of a saddle. I keep an eye on this, being careful to not step on it, and I took more photos and studied its underside which has whitish "veins" and spikey little root-like protrusions. I've been looking at the Brodo book but still haven't figured out the species.

9/19/21. Adamant, Jack Hill & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 3.3 miles today, 3529.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, arthropods, fungi, nibbles

This morning I drove down to Adamant with my birding lens for a walk. Once I got there, though, I was immediately distracted by the apples at the music school. I found myself wanting to pick apples more than do any serious birding. Still, I walked out to Eric Ryea's point to count the geese on Adamant Pond and see what other birds might be there. I think I saw some grebes and maybe some wood ducks, plus some yellow-rumped warblers in his yard. Then I drove down to Adamant center to check on the tomato plants in the music school garden and collected quite a few Roma tomatoes. After that I drove up to the end of Quarry Rd to check the apple trees there. Those trees didn't have many apples left, but to my surprise, the gate was open to the quarry. The theater at the quarry recorded its performances this year, but then decided to show the videos to in-person audiences at the quarry, which is why the gate was open. I so very much miss being able to walk up to the quarry and beyond. When Eric Ryea was the caretaker, he let any local folks walk the land and even had trails open. After he retired and the new caretaker took over, access to the music school grounds, especially the quarry, has been much more restricted. As I walked through the gate and up to the quarry, I had an emotional rush, a thrill to be back on land that I love so much. I saw a tricolored bumblebee, a common eastern bumblebee, and was delighted to see that the ground cherries along the road are spreading and in fruit. Nibbles were wild raisins and apples.

For lunch, my husband and I drove back up to our friend's house on Jack Hill Rd for a picnic. Another of our friend's daughter's was visiting, and we celebrated her birthday (January) on top of their hill overlooking the mountains. Then we went for a very brisk walk through the woods back down the hill. I managed to shoot a bolete, an amanita, and a toad along the way. I was glad to walk the trails since I have been intending to explore these trails some more but wasn't quite sure where the entrance along the road was.

In the evening at the lights, I found false hemlock looper, gray spruce looper, an Argyrotaenia, and another micro. I also found a cranefly, fungus gnats, and a harvestman.

9/21/21. Beaver Brook Rd, Groton, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 1.8 miles today, 3534.9 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, fungi, ferns, leafminers, and galls

This afternoon my husband and I drove up to Groton for more adventures. I dropped him off at Fiddlehead Pond so he could ride down to Ricker on his new unicycle. Then I continued on to Beaver Brook Rd to make another attempt at reaching Pigeon Pond through the woods. This time I started precisely at where Beaver Brook crosses Beaver Brook Rd. I followed the brook (and some moose tracks) up through the woods. The woods are incredibly rocky, with big granite boulders covered with moss and surrounded by northern hardwoods, except where they don't get much sun, and then the boulders are covered with Pleurozium Schreberi and other boreal moss species. I found a clearing where there was a beaver pond, and then another clearing with a pond, and again. I stopped at the fourth pond when I realized that there wouldn't be time to reach Pigeon Pond on this route. Even though I was making a direct line in the right direction, going was slow since I had to hop over boulders, fallen trees, and young red spruce groves. Where I stopped was just on the border of the state lands, so that was another reason for deciding to stop. I guess I need another method to get to Pigeon Pond, such as finding out the owner and getting permission to visit by walking down the road. One of my Saturday morning hiking buddies says she visited the pond one time, so I should find out from her how to contact the owner. In the meantime, there are still lots of new trails to explore in the state forest. Today I found leafminers on yellow birch, bunchberry and Clematis. I nibbled on blackberries and hobblebush berries, and shot a bumblebee, a chickadee, and a minnow in one of the ponds. I also saw plenty of gilled mushrooms and corals.

In the evening at the lights I saw a wainscot, unspotted looper, false hemlock looper, birch leaftier, Argyrotaenia, and other micros. I also found a leafhopper, several midges, male mosquito, caddisflies, and fungus gnats.

9/23/21. Barr Hill, Montpelier, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.6 miles today, 3537.8 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, leafminers, and galls

This morning I met up with Eve and Ed at Barr Hill, a distillery on the east side of Montpelier, along the Winooski River. The distillery is a new destination in town, serving food and cocktails and offering tours, so they have a large parking lot. Our plan had been to meet at the distillery and hunt for bugs along the bike trail across the street. But we never got off the distillery property. There was a long stretch of sage between the rows of the parking lot, full of bumblebees, carder bees, and other insects. Then along the margins of the lot near the river were banks of weeds, including goldenrods, mullein, asters, soapwort, and other pioneers. We found bumblebees, masked bees, carder bees, Megachilidae, grasshoppers, leafhoppers, caterpillars, seed bug, native ladybugs, paper wasp, bald-faced hornet, yellowjacket, ambush bugs, and elder shoot borers. I also found leafminers in the planted river birch in the parking lot, and in goldenrod, and galls in sumac, grape, and goldenrod. On a particularly barren stretch of dry bare soil with just a few Chenopodium and pig amaranth, I even found a cup plant, my first in Montpelier.

In the evening at the moth lights I found connected looper, two-spotted looper, false hemlock looper, gray spruce looper, and some micros, plus tree hopper, leaf hoppers, harvestman, midges, Ichneumon wasp, march fly, gall midges, and clouds and clouds of fungus gnats.

9/25/21. Robinson Hill Rd, Calais, VT, Groton State Park, Groton, VT & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 5 miles today, 3544.2 miles total.
Categories: road crossers, leafminers, galls, arthropods

This morning I met up with my 4 friends for our regular Saturday morning hike. We walked along Robinson Hill Rd in Calais, taking in the views of foliage across the valley below with the river bottoms covered in fog. I found lots of very tiny red efts crossing the road, as well as a hickory tussock. One of my friends found a slug moth caterpillar. I also found leafminers on columbine, elm, and calico aster, and stopped to admire some fungi and slime molds, including some eyelash cups. We found several squashed toads on the road.

In the afternoon, my husband and I took my aunt and uncle out to Groton State Park. While he rode his unicycle down from Fiddlehead Pond to Ricker, I took my aunt and uncle on a tour of the ponds. We stopped in a Marshfield Pond, Kettle Pond, and Noyes Pond, then went for a walk along the trail at Groton Pond. I found leafminers on thimbleberry and beech and a gall on alder.

In the evening at the lights, there was just a single pug moth, plus several species of craneflies, including a mating pair, an Ichneumon, a green lacewing, a few fungus gnats, a march fly, and an Erioptera fly.

9/27/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3545.3 miles total.
Categories: arthropods

Today was rainy and a little chilly, so I stayed indoors to get some work done. In the evening I went out to the lights and was happy to find that it was actually a little warmer than the last few nights, and quite humid. I found gray spruce looper, sensitive fern borer, geometers, and some micros, plus caddisflies, fungus gnats, midge, western conifer seed bug, caterpillar, and Ichneumon wasps.

9/29/21. Lightening Ridge trails & Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 4 miles today, 3550.9 miles total.
Categories: leafminers, galls, and arthropods

This afternoon I explored one of the side trails off a side trail from the Chickering Bog trail. Part of this trail ran along the north and west edges of the Nature Conservancy property. Then it followed an old road down towards Sodom Pond. At 2 miles in the old road came out onto some mowed trails, but I didn't have time to figure out whose trails they might be. They probably belong to someone on Sodom Pond Rd. The old road was quite scenic, winding through deep woods, past a section of boreal forest, some dried vernal pools at the top of the Bog, and some of the steepest cliffs I have seen in Calais. I found leafminers on beech, black cherry, hop hornbeam, red maple, sugar maple, avens, goldenrod, red raspberry, buckthorn, alternate-leaved dogwood, and blackberry and galls on blackberry, alternate-leaved dogwood, striped maple, and hop hornbeam. I nibbled on a partridgeberry.

In the evening at the lights there were no moths, but I found a caddisfly, a midge, a cranefly, and a house fly.

9-1-21. Pleasant Valley Park, Bernards Twp., NJ. 0.75 miles today, 1103.75 miles total

I walked through the woods here and around the lake. I'd not been to this park since the snow melted (it's one of the best for plowed pathways in winter). There was a lot more growing now than then! I found an interesting fruit fly, lots of smartweeds, buckthorn, willowherb, and a groundhog on the way out.

That night we got about 12 inches of rain in about 3 hours. The brook that is four houses away from me dammed at the road bridge and diverted such that it flowed through my next door neighbor's and my house. It broke two of our basement windows and within half an hour we had four feet of water in the basement and had to open the back door to let it out. It rose to within 1 inch of washing across the main floor of the house. We never lost power (though probably should have shut it down ourselves, as some of the circuit breaker box was underwater), but we lost phone, internet, heat, hot water, washer, dryer, chest freezer, all the upholstered furniture in our "rec room" and a whole lot of other stuff from the basement. Plus the river took out a third of our fencing, the lawn tractor, the mower, and the entire contents of our vegetable garden. Our neighbor was worse off, as he lost 5 cars (and gained one, when someone else got washed into his driveway, and was saved by the neighbors). Four people were killed in town. It was the worst we've seen in 30 years, and we're still cleaning up (though everything but the tractor is back up and running).

The next day there was a minnow in the middle of my lawn, and a bunch of crayfish trying to get down the storm sewer and back to the brook. The kids found a baby snapping turtle, unfortunately dead, in among the debris in the yard a couple days later.

9-16-21. Loveless Preserve, Ewing, NJ. 0.5 miles today 1105 miles total

Today I helped Molly get her car inspected (she had a day off from student teaching for Yom Kippur) and on the way home stopped at this park that I had not visited for 4 years. I found a cool Ichneumon wasp, plus lots of asters and Perilla in bloom.

9-27-21. Mountain Park, Liberty Corner, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 1106 miles total

With the mud out of the basement and the furnace and waterheater in life is finally mostly back to normal, though there is still a good bit of work to do, especially on the yard. But now I have time to go back to walking. This evening I walked at the local park with a bit of a wildflower meadow and saw lots of asters, including some very pretty New England, several species of Bidens, lots of smartweeds and goldenrods. All four of those are genera I'm working on learning this fall. Plus an ambersnail on barnyard grass, and tiger moth caterpillar of some kind on dogbane.

9-29-21. Along Delaware River near Phillipsburg, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 1106.75 miles total

I drove all the way out (1 hour) to Phillipsburg today because I wanted to see if I could find more of "my" smartweed (P. posumbu). (It's "mine" because I was asked last year to co-author a paper on the first sightings of it in the US). Amusingly I found it in several places today but only recognized it in one, until I went back and looked carefully at the photos.

I stopped four times here along the road which runs along the railroad tracks which separate it from the river. And I managed to get a big stick wedged under my back axle such that I couldn't' get it out and couldn't even reach it myself. I was worried, but eventually it fell out on its own. Other than the smartweeds, I also saw moonseed, wild hydrangea, hackberry petiole galls, waterleaf, bluestem and zigzag goldenrods, jetbead, ebony spleenwort, lots of asters, and some kind of woodland sunflower.

I'm so sorry to hear about the flood--I was entirely unaware of how much damage it did. I'm glad that you have been able to get your house back together so soon. Who ever would have thought you'd find minnows and crayfish in your backyard? It was fun to read about leafy elephant's foot, blue mistflower, richweed, mile-a-minute, and Perilla--I don't know any of these, so I need to study your photos. It was a good thing you didn't have our Saturday morning hikers with you on the serpentine trip, or you'd still be there, watching them going at the rocks with their screwdrivers. Way to go on the Persicaria posumbu paper! And then finding more it.