July 2018: Describe your walk by adding a comment below
Each time you go out and make observations for this project, describe your walk by adding a comment to this post. Include the date, distance walked, and categories that you used for this walk.
Suggested format:
Date. Place. Distance walked today. Total distance for this project.
Categories.
Brief description of the area, what you saw, what you learned, who was with you, or any other details you care to share.
Comentários
7-1-18. Border Trail, Eagle Hill Institute, Steuben ME. 1 mile today, 1369.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, seashells
I went looking for birds this morning in the woods around campus and down on the beach. I managed to catch a blue-headed vireo, some gulls (probably ring-billed), an osprey, a tern, a pair of ducks, a pair of double crested cormorants, a pair of downy woodpeckers, and a red squirrel. On the beach I found a large blue crab in the seaweed and a seashell that I hadn't seen before.
7-2-18. Tucker Rd, Calais VT. 3.7 miles today, 1373.2 miles total.
Categories: blooms, fruit, birds
I took an early morning walk up to Tucker Rd this morning to beat the heat. We are definitely transitioning to mid-summer around here, with fruits starting to ripen and mid-summer blooms opening up. Blooms today were common milkweed, moneywort, garden columbine, mullein, wild parsnip, sorbaria, black knapweed, black-eyed susan, tall meadowrue, white avens, bindweed, heal-all, wood nettle, and black elderberry. Meanwhile, the red elderberries have ripe fruit. Also, the red baneberries. I heard over 30 species of birds along the route, but the only ones I managed to catch with my camera were robin, turkey, crow, bluejay, and yellowbellied sapsucker. Plus a group of 5 ravens who were noisily bathing in the pool of the mostly dried up waterfall. Road crossers were a red eft, a woolly bear, and a millipede. Road kill were a skipper, a white admiral butterfly, and 3 American toads.
1.8 miles, Burbank, Ohio.
I also took an early morning walk at my favorite area to beat the heat. The humidity was quite high though at 6:30 am.
I saw a lot of bird movement. This would include robins, red winged blackbirds, warblers, sparrows, an osprey, and lots of swallows.
I am puzzled at the lack of frogs and bullfrogs that used to inhabit a small pond that is adjacent to the lake. Lots of algae buildup and runoff from the farm next door.
I am noticing more swamp milkweed and common milkweed. Lots of flowers blooming. The water in the lake seems quite clear.
7-1-18 Mt. Horeb Rd., Warren, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 300.5 miles total
Categories: insects, flowering
It was supposed to get dangerously hot on Sunday, so I walked fairly early. I parked at an elementary school (not ours) and walked the road it's on. Usually it's quite busy and has not shoulders but on Sunday morning not so much.
There was a huge variety of weeds but fewer insects than I expected. Interesting plants included narrow leaved cattail in bloom, yellow stargrass also blooming, and plantain leaved pussytoes in fruit.
7-2-18. Medemerge, Green Brook, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 300.25 miles total
Category: weeds
We are having a huge (100 person) party tomorrow, so today was very busy with preparations. Until I managed to cut my finger on a bit of glass in a garbage bag I was throwing in the big garbage can. So it was down to the "doc in a box" for four stitches. But afterwards I took 10 minutes to walk the edge of the parking lot and check out the not-very-interesting weeds.
Neat to see you posting @carolr , welcome! I look forward to hearing about your walks.
7-3-18. Fifer's Run Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1376.3 miles total.
Categories: sedges, blooms
I chose Fifer's Run Rd for my early morning walk today since it is very wooded, and I still need to seek shade because of extreme sun sensitivity. Only about 100' of the walk was in the sun, so that was just about right. I only found a few new blooms today: woodland forget-me-not, large hop clover, and wall lettuce (ugh!). I also found day lilies all budded up, ready to break out into bloom. My road crossers were a red eft and brown butterfly (northern pearly-eye, I think). No road kill! I also kept an eye out for sedges and came back with 3 to try to identify. I think I may have Scirpus hattorianus, Carex trisperma, and ... another Carex, one we didn't see at the sedge course in Maine. The big thrill of the day was seeing a large red fox running across the upper field on Peck Hill Rd. It was so big, I wondered if it was a fawn, or maybe a coyote. But it was too red for a coyote, and it was definitely a wild canid, so it must have been a fox. I managed to get 2 photos before it ran over the hill.
Sorry about your finger, Sara! I hope it heals quickly. And congratulations for reaching 300 miles! Way to go!
Welcome aboard Carol! We look forward to joining you on your walks!
7-4-18. IEF School, Green Brook, NJ, and Ashland Rd., Summit, NJ. 1 mile today, 301.25 miles total.
Categories: blooming, insects, weeds
I had to get the stitches rechecked, and this elementary school is right nearby (and closed for the holiday, so ideal for walking at). It was mid morning but already hot. I found lots and lots of insects, most of all being the plant hopper nymphs that are covered in white fuzz. Blooming were white clover, dandelion, porcelainberry, poke, bittersweet nightshade, broad dock, low smartweed, orange jewelweed, catnip, white avens, asiatic dayflower, and a tiny St. John's wort.
In the evening we parked at my in-laws' and walked over to their town fireworks. My camera battery died on the way so I didn't get many photos, but we caught fireflies and noticed the weeds in their shrubbery.
7-5-18. Van Veighton House, Finderne, NJ, 1.0 mile today, 302.25 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, weeds
We picked my son, Carl's, truck up from his work (where it's parked for the week while he drives out to California and back in his big rig) so we can take it in tomorrow for bodywork after a minor accident (not his fault). Right across the street is this historic house that I've eyed many times but never stopped at. Turns out it backs onto a park I'd walked the west end of but not this, the eastern. It's a superfund site the government is cleaning up, in the curve of a river, so pretty damp, but we've been dry enough that it was not mucky. Blooming were: black medic, crown vetch, mock strawberry, field garlic, a fleabane, white clover, horse nettle, bird's foot trefoil, red clover, yellow sweet clover, hemp dogbane (with dogbane leaf beetles, so pretty), pickerelweed, some yellow mustard, buttonbush, hedge bindweed, stinging nettle (though that might have just been fruit), Queen anne's lace (the first of the year), common milkweed, swamp milkweed (the first of the year), Canada thistle (with goldfinches eating the seeds), Saururus cernuus (I love that it has so many U's, plus I rarely see it), some unknown sunflower, deptford pink, scarlet pimpernel, and someone had planted creeping thyme in front of one of the warehouses back on the road. Nearly all invasive, and virtually no overlap with yesterday's (lawn and woods) weeds.
Much of the shrubery was what I at first thought was honey locust (and to be fair there was also some actual honey locust) but what I finally realized was Amorpha fruticosa. I also scared myself by nearly stepping on a huge Fowler's toad!
I came out at a different part of the industrial complex, and on the telephone pole there was posted a homemade sign "Beware: Angry Old Man" with a photo of a guy in his 50s or so in a plaid shirt. Luckily I didn't run into the real deal.
Killbuck Lake Nature Preserve: Medina County, Ohio
I had a dusk to dark walk last night. It is always interesting to see movement of animals and insects at this time of the day. Of course you have to withstand mosquitoes and flies. I hiked about 2.2 miles . Not too much cardio challenge though. The 4th was enough! lol
It was drizzling rain most of the time, but it DID bring out the toad and frog songs :) A vernal pool (that is turning into a larger pond) adjacent to the thick woods, seems to be attracting and breeding a lot of new amphibians. It may be cooler for them there also.
I took a photo of a bluet that turned out oh so much better than I thought. It is pleasing to the senses :)
Hundreds of birds of all type come in at this time and roost on the treetops. It is quite interesting to watch.
I am always checking for re-habitation of milkweed plants. We have a lot more in this park this year. In the winter I spread pod seeds as much as I could all over. It may have helped :)
Carol
7-4-18. Barnard Hill Rd, Dunbarton NH. 2.5 miles today, 1378.8 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, fruit, sedges, rushes
To beat the heat, I went for an early morning walk up the hill from my mother's house. I was a little surprised not to see any bobolinks in the fields this morning--I guess their season is over. I did see some red-winged blackbirds, house swallows, robins, and chipping sparrows. I found a string of 11 barn swallows on the ridge line of the neighbor's barn and telephone wire. New plants blooming this week in New Hampshire were black elder, pokeberry, common Saintjohn's wort, Queen Anne's lace, evening primrose, tall blue lettuce, ragweed, checkerberry, tall meadowrue, chickweed, and lady's thumb. The early goldenrod is budded up but not open yet. Fruiting today were black raspberry, lowbush blueberry, greater celandine, wild sarsaparilla, and American fly honeysuckle. I didn't stop to sample any of the fruit because I would have had to reach across some weeds, and the ticks are just too thick in NH to risk that, sadly. I spotted 2 ticks on some sedge leaves, and that was without specifically looking for them. I took some time to look for sedges and rushes this morning for review from our course last week. I found Carex gynandra, Carex intumescens, Carex buffonius, Carex scoparia, Carex tenuis, Juncus hattorianus, Luzula multiflora. Also, a "woodland dangler" sedge and a new sedge in the Vignea subgenus that I need to look up. Road kill today was an American toad and a green frog.
Glad you didn't find the Angry Old Man, Sara! And good for you, Carol, spreading milkweeds in the park!
7-5-18. Stinson Rd, Dunbarton NH. 2.7 miles today, 1381.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, sedges and rushes
This morning I took my walk through along Stinson Rd. This is the backbone of a development that was built perhaps in the 1980s in the land behind my great grandparents' house. I think I've only been back here once or twice for a yard sale, and never walked these roads. It turns out that the development consists of very large houses situated on very large plots with a bit of wildness in between many of the houses, including some interesting sedges. Today I found Bulboschoenus capillarus (just one clump, in a crack in the road near my mother's house), Carex crawfordii, Carex intumescens, Carex gynandra, Juncus effusus, Scirpus atrocinctus, and another Scirpus. Blooms for the day included staghorn sumac, Scorzoneroides autumnalis, a dogwood, rabbitfoot clover, meadowsweet, spotted jewelweed, and swamp candles. Budding were flat-topped goldenrod, purple loosestrife, and winged sumac (a lifer for me, I think). The Stinson development had lots of yard birds, especially robins, goldfinches, and bluebirds. I also found some grey catbirds, chipping sparrows, and a few yellow-bellied sapsuckers.
7-6-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais VT. 3.1 miles today, 1384.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, fruits, road kill
This morning I inventoried the birds along Pekin Brook Rd in Calais, heading west towards town hall. I found Eastern phoebes, chestnut-sided warblers, a black-throated green warbler, song sparrows, indigo buntings, and mourning doves. Spotted Joe Pye weed is starting to bud up, but is not blooming yet. I was looking for new blooms and had almost given up when I came across two purplish-pinkies: hemp nettle and a roadside pea (Lathyrus). The daylilies also started to open today. And I found honeysuckle berries in bloom, possibly Tatarian, since the underleaves were very fuzzy. I found a new-to-me sedge with dangly bits, but it wasn't a woodland dangler since the top didn't dangle, and also, it was growing alongside the road in the sun rather than in the woods. Roadkill today was an American toad and a yellow bird, possibly an American goldfinch. Just before leaving the house this morning, I checked the weather. My app said 10% chance of rain, so I left my umbrella and even my emergency plastic bag for my camera at home. Of course, the rain started right when I hit my turnaround point, 1.5 miles from home. By the time I got back, I was thoroughly drenched, camera and all.
7-7-18. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1387.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, fruit, blooms, road kill
I hiked up to Lightening Ridge Rd this morning for a climbing workout. Parts of this route are 16% grade, and it's all uphill on the way out, so it's a pretty good climb! I heard many birds in the woods and across the fields, but the only ones I caught on film were some American robins and several yellow-bellied sapsuckers, 2 of which were busy putting a regular pattern of holes in a white birch. Ripe fruit today included some red baneberries and a white ash with lots of seeds. New blooms were a large purple-flowered geranium and large yellow loosestrife, both perhaps escapees from a nearby cultivated yard. The road kill was a toad/frog (too flat to tell) and a garter snake that may have been my fault--I think I may have hit it by accident yesterday when I was driving up the road and didn't see the snake until it was too late. I think yesterday's drenching was a bit much for my camera. The top screen wasn't working today, and neither was the focus indicator through the view finder. When I got back from today's walk I put the camera in a bag with a big scoop of desiccant. Hopefully, it will feel better by tomorrow morning.
7-7-18. Wawayanda State Park, Hewett, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 303.75 miles total
Categories: blooimng, fruiting, galls, insects
I drove an hour and a bit up to Wawayanda park, which I had never visited before. I love the name. The weather was spectacular, though I thought it was a bit cool for swimming, and this park with lake closed very shortly after I got there at 11 am (because the lot was full).
I set out from the parking lot and immediately found an unfamiliar little pink flower. I'm fairly sure it's centaury (Centaurium pulchellum). If I'm right it's the first record in NJ. There was a little wet ditch with some nice sedges (I thought of you), none of which I can name, some smartweed (not blooming), a little arrowhead, and something with big leaves that I'm not sure about. Then I walked around a pond with some St. John's wort and goldenrod already budding. (It's too early! Summer has only started!) There was also a Nuphar that didn't stick out of the water at all; I'm wondering if it's something other than spatterdock.
Next I followed the road a ways and got my first ripe black raspberries of the year to eat. I keep seeing them already gone, but there were several nice juicy ones here, and a standard red raspberry as well. It was way off in the woods, but I wonder if it was planted, as we generally only have black and wine raspberries, plus there was an orange daylily not far from it. Maybe this was an old homesite or something.
In the woods I also found the first blooming tick trefoil of the year (haven't keyed it out yet) and also my first whorled loosestrife (though I think that was simply because I've not been in the right habitat for a while). There was budding parsnip and fruiting honewort, and lots of enchanter's nightshade.
I came out of the woods and crossed to the lake, where I was sad to see a few water chestnut plants among the pondweed, coontail, millfoil, pickerelweed, and fragrant waterlily. I also found two kinds of snails. There were a number of little minnows, blooming tall meadowrue, and some very nice willow cone galls.
On the way out I stopped at another little parking area and looked around. There was the first helleborine I've spotted in NJ (this is practically NY, where I've seen it before). There was also some nice false solomon's seal in fruit, lots of coltsfoot, a rough cinquefoil, and an Ailanthus webworm caterpillar.
Then on the way home I stopped once more at the south end of the park. When I got out about 5 presumably deer flies (small and insistently buzzing my head, but yellow with green eyes) chased my car and then me. I had a hat, which helped immensely but they were so persistent I only lasted 10 minutes. But on the way back to the car I found my first ever bear corn!
I keep waiting for you to pull ahead of me, blooming-flower-wise, but it sounds like we are currently neck-and-neck. We have lots of shining sumac down here, but no hemp nettle.
7/8/18. Cross Vermont Trail, Marshfield, VT. 6.1 miles today, 1393.8 miles total.
Categories: blooms, birds, sedges and rushes, dragonflies, fruits, road kill
I took a long walk this morning up the rail-to-trail in Marshfield to the pond road, then followed that road for quite a ways. I encountered a few bicyclists this morning, but no cars--hurray! Along the trail I saw the usual weeds and invasives in bloom like bishop's weed, and silver cinquefoil. I also came across a small patch of large-flowered evening primrose, perhaps Oenothera glazioviana. I also found some Aralia hispida along a logging trail. I have seen it in Maine, but this was the first time I have seen it in Vermont. The trail edges were lined with dwarf raspberry, wild strawberry, and red raspberries, all in fruit, which I sampled quite a bit. I had a good time reviewing my common sedges and rushes, finding Juncus tenuis, Scirpus hattorianus, Carex argyrantha, Carex gynandra, Scirpus atrocinctus, Luzula multiflora, Juncus effusis, Carex spicata, Juncus balticus, Carex scoparia, Carex debilis, and Carex intumescens. The big plant surprise for the day was waiting for me when I got back to the car, and realized that I had parked under a fairly sizeable American chestnut. Hmmmm. How did that get there? For dragonflies, I found a chalk-fronted corporal consuming a deerfly (yeah!), several twelve spotted skimmers, an emerald jewelwing, and a violet dancer. I heard a lot of birds, but only caught some chickadees, a common yellowthroat, and a song sparrow. Road kill was overly plentiful, with LOTS of flattened frogs and toads, a few garter snakes, a red eft, a pancaked ruffed grouse, and a dead dragonfly (maybe a Gomphus).
7/9/18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais VT and Hubbard Park, Montpelier VT. 5.1 miles today, 1398.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, sedges and rushes
I took a brisk walk up my old running route on Pekin Brook Rd this morning. I've been up and down this stretch of road hundreds of times, so I didn't expect to find anything new. I kept my eyes out for birds this morning, and caught an indigo bunting, a robin, and a red-winged blackbird. The crown vetch and musk mallow, both with their bright pink flowers were in bloom. I kept my eye out for sedges and rushes but didn't see any, except for one patch in a wetlands that was too far from the road to get a close look. Road kill was a toad/frog (unidentifiable from remains).
In the afternoon, my husband and I walked the trail from the Statehouse up to Hubbard Park in Montpelier. This was a great trail for woodland sedges, since we found Carex tenuis, Carex disperma, Carex debilis, Luzula multiflora, Carex echinata, and 2 others that I haven't identified yet. We also found a garden snapdragon in bloom in the middle of the woods. That was a surprise! The heart-leaved aster is starting to bud. We paused along the North Branch River to watch a crow eating a large fish. We also saw some red-winged blackbirds and several pigeons swooping under the Langdon St bridge.
Oddly, the only place I've ever seen Aralia hispida was in Vermont, on the top of Wrights Mountain in Bradford (at our cousin's wedding there). Our only raspberries are generally black and wine raspberries, but the latter are wonderful. While I was waiting my turn to drive our new ambulance at the rescue squad last night, a friend and I stood around eating wineberries off the nearby bushes.
7/10/18. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais, VT. 3.6 miles today, 1402.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects on milkweeds, blooms
With the milkweed blossoms at their glorious best today, I slowed down my walk to inspect the flowers and plants for insects. I found at least 3 kinds of bumblebees (Bombus borealis, B. ternarius, and another), a thread-waisted wasp, several other wasps, some flies, several long-horned beetles, a ladybug...and a monarch caterpillar! Oh joy! My first one in 2 years! I also managed to "catch" a few birds today, including a cedar waxwing, a red-eyed vireo, a group of 4 pigeons on top of a silo, a group of 7 turkeys (females and young), and a single Tom turkey. The new blooms for the day were pinky-red: fireweed, and a Calystegia. Plus the first spiny sow thistle blossom of the year.
I enjoyed plenty of wild ripe raspberries this morning. Then I went off to the dentist for my 6-month cleaning...Whoops!
7/11/18. Peck Hill Rd, Calais VT & North St., Montpelier VT. 6 miles today, 1408.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, road kill, invasives
I took a hike up Peck Hill this morning and chanced to meet a new neighbor. She wants to get out for morning walks as well, so maybe we'll see her here. I found a few new blooms this morning, enchanter's nightshade and American lopseed. Birds for the early walk were mourning dove, eastern phoebe, and a song sparrow. Road kill was a garter snake.
Later in the morning I took a walk up North St with a friend. We came across several dead short-tailed shrews. It seems to be the season for them, since I've found a few others this week. There were turkey vultures circling overhead, but I don't think they were after the shrews. We also saw red-winged blackbirds, cedar waxwings, and song sparrows. Today's invasives were Japanese knotweed, morning glory, comfrey, mock orange, Japanese barberry, wild chervil, common lilac, lady's mantle, valerian, and purple loosestrife. Other blooms were fringed loosestrife and blue vervain. At one point, an out-of-state car nearly ran us down. Then it plowed down some traffic cones that were in the road, so we guessed that the driver was texting rather than specifically out to get us. But you shouldn't do that to someone carrying a birding lens. Photos of the bad driver and his car are now at the police station.
7/12/18. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais VT. 2.4 miles today, 1410.9 miles total.
Categories: blooms, road kill, insects
This morning I went for a short walk along the western end of Lightening Ridge Rd. I kept my eye out for any new blooms and came up with 3 unexpected ones, an unfamiliar evening primrose, an astilbe that seems to have wandered off into the woods from someone's garden, and a sorbaria in full bloom along the road. Road kill this morning was a northern red-bellied snake and flattened mystery mammal.
After lunch, I took a break from my computer to go see what was pollinating the weeds in the yard. We have a large stand of mixed white and yellow sweet clover and lots of milkweed. I was delighted to find 3 monarch butterflies amongst the milkweed, the most I've seen in years in our yard. Other butterflies included a tiger swallowtail, a blue, a fritillary, a white admiral, a northern pearly eye, a hair streak, and several different kinds of skippers. I also found a good variety of moths: Haploa confusa, banded tussock, carpets, a forage looper, a plume, Heterophleps triguttaria, faint-spotted palthis, the beggar, Zanclognatha laevigata, double-banded grass veneer, and several micros. The sweet clovers were very popular with the bees. I found several kinds of bumblebees, lots of honeybees, some other bees, and some hornets. I managed to "catch" several beetles, including a pair of mating Japanese beetles. The grasshoppers were very thick in the grass underfoot--I could have made a real meal of them if I was into eating grasshoppers. Meanwhile, I found a song sparrow eating a green caterpillar and made a common yellowthroat in the field very nervous by poking around its feeding grounds.
7/13/18. Tucker Rd, Calais VT. 3.1 miles today, 1414 miles total.
Categories: blooms, road kill
This morning I did an out-and-back walk of the full length of Tucker Rd. Today's blooms were chicory and bladder campion. Neither are really new, but I can't remember if I shot them yet in Calais this year, so why not? I also found some huge swaths of Carex microcarpus, the barberpole sedge. Road kill was a red eft and garter snake. And I thought a whiteface (dragonfly) as well, but when I picked it up to photograph it, it perched on my finger. I brought it back to the car to see if it would recover or become another piece for my "trophy" hat (a visor cap covered with roadkill insects that I wear for very special occasions). Instead, once in the warmth of the car, it began to shiver, then fly around. So out the window it went, I'm glad to say. Perhaps it got so chilled overnight that it fell from its perch into the roadbed--it didn't seem to be injured at all.
Go you! I'm thrilled you turned in the bad driver! and neat that you saved the dragonfly. It's been quite a while since I've found a cold insect!
7-8-18. River Road Park, Pluckemin, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 305 miles total
Categories: blooming, fruiting, insects.
Lovely, sunny afternoon, with the humidity finally down. This was a meadow bordered by woods, mostly. I found purple headed sneezeweed (a new one for me), grapeleaf skeletonizer moth (which I thought was new to me but it turns out I found it four years ago and misidentified it), the first blooming seedbox of the year, and 26 Japanese beetles including 8 mating pairs (one a triplet) on a single grape leaf! That should scandalize my daughter, Katie.
7/14/18. Lightening Ridge Rd, 3.1 miles today, 1417.1 miles total.
Categories: birds, sedges, surprising plants
I hauled out my recording equipment today to try and catch that bob white that I kept hearing on earlier walks on Lightening Ridge this morning. It's been a while since I used the equipment in the field so it was a comedy of errors. First of all, I couldn't get my shotgun microphone to work at all. It wasn't until I got home that I remembered it takes an AA battery. Once I changed the battery, it worked fine, phew! As a backup, I tried using the built in microphone on my recorder, and it worked OK, but not great. But at least it worked. And then there was my plan to take screen captures as GPS labels for the recordings. But I couldn't remember the secret button press combination for screen captures, and of course, there is no Internet to search out in the field around here. So I had to lay my phone on the ground and take photos of my screen with my other camera. Fortunately, it started to rain, so my experiment in sound recording was cut short. Too many raindrops, too few bird songs. But at least I had a few not-so-great recordings to bring home and use for practice uploading on iNaturalist. I'll try again tomorrow and see if I can do better. I managed to get some common birds, though, like alder flycatcher, song sparrow, robin, and a blue jay. I also caught the bob white. Except, I finally figured out where the song was coming from--a local dairy farm with chickens by the barn. I'm guessing the bob white I've been hearing is their domestic bird and not living wild after all. I found a ditch with a nice collection of rushes, including Carex gyndandra, C. scoparia, C. spicata, and C. flava. Surprising plants for the day were a garlic mustard growing in a hole in a large sugar maple, about 3' off the ground, together with a Solanum spp. Along the road, I found an Acer ginnala and an Elaeagnus umbellata, neither of which I've noticed in Calais before (uh oh!).
A triplet mating pair? That's a very dicey neighborhood you were walking in!
7/15/18. Cross Vermont Trail, Marshfield, VT. 2.1 miles today, 1419.2 miles total.
Categories: trees, blooms, fruits, sedges and rushes, ferns, fungi, birds
I went back up to the Cross Vermont Trail this morning in hopes of trying my audio recording equipment again. It went better this morning, although I first had to walk a half mile to get out of earshot of the dueling chainsaws. I got the recording and microphone working, though, and also got the screen captures to work on my phone. I wanted the screen captures to use as labels for the bird songs that would be GPS marked. The screen captures looked nice and clear when I got home, which they should since they were .PNG files. But, .PNG format doesn't include GPS, so that idea didn't work. I tried another app that does saves screencaptures as .JPG files, but that app also doesn't include GPS coordinates. So it looks like yesterday's idea is probably the easiest one--just take a photo of the phone screen with my real camera to get the GPS coordinates. Good enough. I recorded several forest birds, including a black-throated-green warbler and a black-throated-blue warbler. I also found a blue jay feather.
Meanwhile, I had fun looking for blooms, fruits, and sedges and rushes along the trail. I found red baneberry in fruit, red raspberry, and dwarf raspberry in fruit. Blackberry has fruits but the fruits are quite green. My new bloom for today was a garden phlox. And I found my first chanterelles of the season.
7/16/18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT. 2.5 miles today, 1421.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, fruits, galls
I took a quick walk up Pekin Brook Rd to count the birds and look for new blooms. The only new bloom for today was common agrimony. At least I have figured out how to shoot agrimony to identify it to species--gotta capture the hairs on the rachis of inflorescence. Birds for today included eastern kingbird and American robin. And more, but I didn't get good photos of the others since I left my good camera at home. I found a new-to-me basswood leaf gall (Didymomyia tiliacea?) and some amber snails apparently mating.
Shooting agrimony to ID here is easy, as I basically never findy any that isn't swamp agrimony. My favorite "gross mating bug" picture is a pair of slugs, but I have a pair of snails, as well, and Katie hates them, too.
7-10-18 Chimney Rock Rd., Finderne, NJ 0.5 miles today, 305.5 miles total
Categories: weeds
There is a new "stop and rob" (convenience store) nearby, a Wawa. It's right on a rarely used railroad spur and near a cemetery. So I parked in its lot and explored the area. Black eyed susans, Queen anne's lace, chicory, fleabane, plantain, bindweed, mullein, thistle, clover, trefoil, heal-all, carpetweed, and spotted spurge were all blooming, your basic roadside weeds this time of year.
7-10-18 Washington Ave., Green Brook, NJ, 1.0 mile today, 306.5 miles total
Category: weeds
In the evening I got my stitches taken out, and walked from the "doc in a box" across a brook and in to the next town and back (not that you could tell we'd changed towns, aside from the sign on the border; I remember being surprised how each town and village is a separate thing in Vermont; they certainly aren't here.
Horse nettle, Queen Anne's lace, black medic, groundsel, poke, as well as a lone apparently escaped cleome on the bank of the brook, completely surrounded by an enormous patch of jimsonweed.
poison ivy galls, plant hopper nymph,
7-10-18 Washington Ave., Green Brook, NJ, 1.0 mile today, 306.5 miles total
Category: weeds
In the evening I got my stitches taken out, and walked from the "doc in a box" across a brook and in to the next town and back (not that you could tell we'd changed towns, aside from the sign on the border; I remember being surprised how each town and village is a separate thing in Vermont; they certainly aren't here.
Horse nettle, Queen Anne's lace, black medic, groundsel, poke, crown vetch and bull thistle were all blooming, as well as a lone apparently escaped cleome on the bank of the brook, completely surrounded by an enormous patch of jimsonweed.
I also spotted poison ivy galls (I'm always filled with glee, seeing the poison ivy plants covered in their own rash) and a plant hopper nymph. My camera was giving me trouble. Pictures were blurred at first then still but way too dark, and then the batter died completely about half way through my walk. Luckily there was not much of interest on the way home.
7-12-18 Lincoln Park, Jersey City, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 307.5 miles total
Categories: insects, wetland plants, weeds, birds
I had intended to go back to a park I'd visited last winter in Bayonne, but the traffic was so bad, that Google wanted to send me up through Jersey City, right past Lincoln Park, so I decided to check it out instead. This is a lovely new urban park with tons of very nice playing fields (if that's your thing) and a golf course, but also some lovely paved paths winding through the wetlands on the edge of the property.
There were fiddler crabs (I assume) in the mud along the banks. They were excellent at hiding the second I showed up, but I managed to catch a few with my bird lens. I also got an egret and a blue heron (and some gulls and a barn swallow) with the longer lens. But mostly I concentrated on bugs on the plants along the path.
There was a lot of groundsel bush, absolutely covered in leaf beetles (Trirhabda bacharidis I believe). I caught many of them mating (won't Katie be thrilled--not). There was white sweet clover and smooth sumac in bloom and both covered in bees and wasps. There were lots of cottonwoods with aphids attended by so many ants you could not even see the aphids, and there was a lovely Furcula caterpillar (only the fourth Furcula and the secon Furcula cat posted from NJ). There were several kinds of coneflower-y things, and bergamot, and butterfly weed (I suspect all were planted, but it was not obvious). A pair of mating robberflies, what I think is a Strophostyles sp., the first burdock flowering of the year. There was cut-leaved blackberry, a still very rare but widely distributed invasive in the state. All in all a very fun walk.
7-14-18 Duke Island Park, Bradley Gardens, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 308 miles total
categories: Weeds, insects
My husband and I went to the Verizon store to see if they could fix his cell phone (which will call but won't text, oddly). Instead we bought a new one. But afterward we walked along the Raritan River on a well-traveled bike path. There's a rather dangerous weir here, and the path is wide enough and paved down to it; I suspect for emergency vehicle access (our squad has saved two people injured while swimming illegally near a different dam in our town in the past week). Sure enough, below the dam there were about half a dozen people in the water, but the area they were in was flat and fairly safe.
The highlight of the walk was a 5-foot snakeskin my husband spotted. That, and someone walking a Newfoundland dog, his favorite breed.
7-15-18. Spruce Run Reservoir, Clinton, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 309 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, weeds
On my way out to this state park I got pulled over by the police for turning out of a gas station without using my signal. Woops. Luckily it was only a warning.
It was a beautiful evening after a rain, and a number of people were swimming on the lake beach here. I parked at the other end of a bike trail and walked to the beach and back. Mostly it was weedy woods. I found the first blooming lobelia of the year, lots of lace bugs (willow, sycamore, black walnut). I caught a ring billed gull trying to steal someone's Cheetos. There was a hackberry with tons of galls, and a grape, likewise.
7-15-18. Sneider Rd., Warren, NJ. 2.0 miles today, 311 miles total
Categories: weeds, insects
Walked with my husband and several of our closest friends down this side road near home at dusk. I spotted newly emerged planthoppers and a green stinkbug in the act of laying eggs. Chuck, my husband, had the best eye for mammals, finding me a baby deer (not that this was hard), a bunny, and groundhog (ran in the hole too quickly for my camera) and a squirrel. Plants-wise there's a tiny sedge that grows in pavement, and a grass with purple flowers and orange anthers which I don't know.
7-16-18. Mount Horeb School, Warren, NJ 0.25 miles today, 311.25 miles total
Categories: blooming, bugs
I walked the edges of the school grounds this afternoon while waiting to pick my kids up from day camp. I found a huge thistle, an interesting plant hopper, a psychedelic looking mayfly and a pair of mating milkweed weevils (which were like tanks, mating. Katie will be horrified).
7-16-18 Victor Crowell Park, Middlesex, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 312 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects, weeds, galls.
This is a suburban park along the stream outlet of a dammed pond, mostly wooded, some mown. I saw my first monarch of the year. There was a blooming buttonbush with a ton of bees and skippers on it, a tiny St. John's wort, curly pondweed, swamp milkweed, purple morning glory, elm and black walnut lace bugs, a ton of planthoppers, a thorn-shaped treehopper on pilewort, the first blooming burdock of the year, and the first fruiting stickseed (not that I was happy to see that). and a gorey pair of bird wings with lots of flies.
7-17-18. Loft Farms, Martinsville, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 312.75 miles total
Categories: anything wild
I walked the loop around this fairly new condo development and was disappointed to find it was so immaculately landscaped and maintained that the only naturally occurring plant or animal I found was some lichen on the trees. Not a sidewalk-crack weed, not a bird, nothing.
Back at home at least my compost tumbler had collected some huge, fat soldier fly maggots (and smaller white maggots that I think are the source of all the stable flies that keep biting me when I try to weed the garden).
7-18-18 Prince Rogers Park, Bridgewater, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 313.25 miles total.
Categories: blooming, insects.
I walked at this ballfield complex because I remembered seeing pink scarlet pimpernel and I wanted to see if it was still here. Most of the area it was growing in is covered with huge piles of woodchips, but there was a bit left, only it's been so dry here it's awfully hard to tell it from faded "regular" scarlet pimpernel. Otherwise there was a huge water hemlock, an interesting fruit fly, a baby deer with no mom in evidence, a milkweed leaf beetle, a monkeyflower, blooming teasel, and purple loosestrife with the leaf beetles they have been releasing around here to try to control it.
7-21-18. Camp Hoover, Stillwater, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 313.75 miles total.
Categories: blooming
I picked up my daughter, Molly, for the weekend despite the fact that she has a car up at camp, because she was exhausted from two weeks of sleep-away camp and I didn't want her to drive an hour and a half home like that. While there I photographed everything I could find flowering between the dining hall and her cabin.
I don't usually get to see sweet cicely, pointed-leaved and naked (I think) tick trefoils, nipplewort, spotted knapweed, teasel, or willlowherb.
7-21-18 Delaware and Raritan Canal, Somerset, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 314.75 miles total
Categories: insects, galls, blooming
I walked the tow path here, a section I've not done before. It was very windy and looking like it would pour at any moment, but held off. Not great weather for insects, though.
There was wild bean, mimosa, elm and sycamore lace bugs, dodder, and a huge turk's cap lily (something I've never seen before).
Ironweed is blooming. There were poison ivy and bitternut leaf galls, all tree kinds of wild rye, debris carrying lacewing larvae, and my first monarch caterpillars of the year.
7-22-18 Camp Hoover, Stillwater, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 315.5 miles total
Categories: insects, flowers
I dropped my daughter back off and looked for more flowers. But first I found 5 kinds of moths in their bathroom. New flowers this time were lobelia, lopseed, wintergreen (spotted), agrimony (small fruited I think), and cypress spurge. There was fruiting helleborine, a net winged beetle, a wood frog, and a chipmunk.
7-22-18. Stillwater Park, Stillwater, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 315.75 miles total
categories: blooming, insects
I stopped and walked the perimeter of this ball field on the way home from my daughter's camp. I was surprised at the variety of plants. There was a fern I'm not sure about, bracken, a red dragonfly, what I think is Carex crinita, the first fringed loosestrife of the summer, a huge mayapple fruit, a hackberry with tons of galls, what I think are walnut fruit flies, and grape phylloxera.
7-22-18. Paulinskill, Newton, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 315.25 miles total
Categories: blooming, insects.
I parked just past a bridge over a narrow man-made lake here on the way home from my daughter's camp, and found a fisherman's path through the woods along the bank. Interesting items here included sanicle, wild ginger, false nettle, false solomon's seal, swamp milkweed, iris fruit, and ironweed.
A bristletail (I think) randomly landed on my hand, and wandered around my arm for a while.
On my virtual walk from my sister's (mile 260) to my parents' (mile 326) I'm in Sharon, NH, two towns away.
I've been loving your updates from the road, with baby deer, mating insects, and maggots. And galls! Keep them coming!
I've been reading up on Carex crinita and Carex gynandra. With C. crinita, the perigynea are more full and organized on the stalk, with the perigynea on C. gynandra looking a little random on the stalk. Apparently, with practice you can see the difference at a glance. But also, an easier trait is that C. crinita has smooth basal sheaths, while the sheaths on C. gynandra are rough. I haven't tried to capture this in a photo yet--I wonder if it will show up with an ordinary lens or if I will need a clip-on phone lens.
7-17-18. Emslie Rd, Calais VT. 2.9 miles today, 1424.6 miles total.
Categories: Insects, blooms, roadkill
I took a walk up Emslie Rd today, starting at the Calais Town Hall. New blooms today were swamp candles, meadowsweet, a pink columbine, and shinleaf. I also noted a section of road that has recently been worked on with new gravel added. A new patch of bishop's weed is growing out of the gravel, while a spikenard that I noticed a few years ago has fought its way back up through the gravel as well. Insect catches included a northern pearly eye and a Japanese beetle.. Roadkill for today was another short-tailed shrew and a dagger moth.
7-18-18. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais VT, Dover Rd, Montpelier VT, Country Club Rd, Montpelier VT, downtown Montpelier VT. 5.5 miles today, 1430.1 miles total.
Categories: blooms, insects
I went for a fast-paced walk before breakfast along Lightening Ridge Rd. After breakfast, I drove into Montpelier and went for a walk with 2 friends up to the water tower in their neighborhood. Then I ran some errands in downtown Montpelier, followed by another walk up Old Country Club Rd before an appointment. After the appointment, I met my husband for a unicycle date along the Montpelier bike path. Then we ate dinner in downtown Montpelier, followed by the usual Wednesday night band concert, requiring another walk up State St. My pedometer read over 30k steps for the day. I decided that was excessive. But I did see a lot of fun plants along the way, scouting for the Montpelier Bioblitz this weekend. Finds included purple clematis snaking its way out of a Japanese yew in front of an abandoned building, Acer gennala, a purple-flowered yarrow, yellow rattle, ground nut, Allegheny monkeyflower, and blue vervain. Insects were an Asiatic garden beetle, a plume moth, some skippers, a bag moth, a long-horned flower beetle, and a tiger swallowtail.
7-19-18. Gray Rd, Calais, VT. 2.2 miles today. 1432.3 miles total.
Categories: blooms, birds
I started my walk at the Calais Elementary School this morning and headed out to the end of Gray Rd. Blooms for the day included Canada thistle, baby's breath, boneset, and a white columbine. Birds were a red-winged blackbird, a robin, a yellow-bellied sapsucker, a songsparrow, a fledgling chickadee, a red-eyed vireo, and a pigeon. Roadkill was a warbler (common yellowthroat?). I also got some long looks at a pair of deer grazing in a field before they leapt off into the woods.
7-20-18. North Calais Rd, Calais VT. 3 miles today, 1435.3 miles total.
Categories: roadkill, birds, blooms
I took a brisk morning walk up North Calais Rd this morning looking for new blooms and birds. The only new bloom I spotted was an odd Rubus that I didn't recognize. It had bright white flowers in terminal clumps. Or maybe it wasn't a Rubus--certainly new to me. I was also entertained en route by several eastern kingbirds hunting insects from the top of roadside spruces. I found lots of road kill today, including a giant cranefly, a northern pine sphinx, a crocus geometer, a red eft, a snake of undeterminable species, and a pancake turtle.
7-21-18. Montpelier, VT. 5 miles today, 1440.3 miles total.
Categories: Bioblitz
Today was the first day of the Montpelier Bioblitz weekend. I was asked to contribute to the bryophyte and moth teams. There was no designated bryophyte team leader, and the other folks on the team were also doubly committed, so I ended up as the unofficial co-ordinator of the group. But first, I started the day with a brief stop downtown where I had spotted broccoli in bloom and turnips and amaranth in the grass beside the Secretary of Agriculture's designated parking space, and a quick trip to photograph the purple clematis on State St. Then I took a roadside hike up Terrace St to the edge of town looking for street weeds. I was especially looking for eyebright, which I had seen there before, but had no luck finding it again. I found a nice selection of road weeds though, including ragweed, hop treefoil, and curly dock. Next I visited the Green Mt Cemetery, to check on some of the strange weeds I had seen there before. I didn't have luck finding silverrod, but I did find the Mimulus moschatus, marsh bedstraw, burning bush, and tick trefoil. I also collected quite a few mosses. Then I made a quick run up the Montpelier bike on my bike to check on the cow parsnip and sunflowers, as well as the common and Japanese barberries. I found some Pellia growing along the river. I then walked through the farmers' market to see the hops, then downtown to count the common knotgrass, spotted sandmat, puslane, and the horse nettle on Main St on Wednesday. I took a quick trip up Old Country Club Rd to find the Allegheny monkeyflower and another sunflower. I looked for the Acer gennala that I spotted on Wednesday but couldn't find it again. Next was a trip out to the Two Rivers area, an abandoned farm on the edge of town. I found some Deptford pink there, but hardly any mosses. I managed to photograph several bees, a spotted sandpiper, and a killdeer. After setting up the bryophyte table at the Bioblitz headquarters at the Nature Center, I drove out to the Horn of the Moon area with a friend to survey for mosses. We collected dozens of mosses there, as well as a spring peeper. In the evening, we ran a moth light at my friend's house and found an Agrotis ipsilon, a Caenirgina, and several micro moths.
Wow, what a busy time you've had! I love the unicycle date. I've never seen eyebright but would love to. I can't imagine being in charge of both mosses and moths!
I wasn't in charge of moths--I was just a minor contributor to the team. The moth team had some wonderful, dedicated experts. So I felt comfortable putting most of my efforts into mosses since it seemed like no one else would be doing so. Now I have all these boxes of mosses to identify, so it will be a good way to learn more.
7-22-18. North Branch Nature Center, Vermont State House, Hubbard Park, Montpelier, VT. 2.5 miles today, 1442.8 miles total.
Categories: Bioblitz
This morning I went hunting for mosses in the mini-ravines of some dried up creek beds on the hillside above the Nature Center. I was aiming to find some Fissidens, a streamside moss, which I found. I looked found a few other water loving moss in the stream beds, even though the beds were dry. On my way back down the hill I found some fluorescent orange fungi on a rotting log that the mushroom expert later identified as chicken-of-the-woods. I next made a quick trip to the "stump dump", a municipal road maintenance area. Behind a gigantic mound of gravel I found a hidden wetlands. I found some bur reed in the water. And in the dried mud beside the water, I found small pale green intricate circles--Ricciocarpos, an ephemeral liverwort, quite a treat! From there, I went to the State House to meet the other moss team member. I had suggested we gather moss from the cracks of the State House steps. She got there first and reported that the steps had been power-washed. Uh oh! And the plants were brown and dying. Oh. When she mentioned the brown dying plants, I realized that she wasn't aware of the extent of our drought. There was no power-washing--it's just been so dry here that the weeds are dying in droves, even the Vinca minor. Fortunately, we found some Bryum argenteum between the cracks, and I also grabbed a tiny sedge that I had noted while scouting earlier in the week. We paused to gather some Hypnum lindbergii from the lawn, then headed up the slope into Hubbard park, gathering moss as we climbed. After about an hour, we returned to the Bioblitz headquarters to work on our IDs. We got to sit with Charlie, who was verifying observations. That was great since we could discuss them with him! I showed the little sedge from the State House steps to some of the plant experts, and they were amazed. It was Cyperus squarrosus, an S3 plant of sandy shores, rivers and lakes...and disturbed places.
7-23-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1445.8 miles total.
Categories: invertebrates
I went for a brisk walk along Pekin Brook Rd this morning with my point-and-shoot camera. Unfortunately, few of the photos I took are usable. I managed to capture a convention of slugs and snails and a dead northern variable dart. I saw several eastern kingbirds and some crows, but there was no way I could catch them with this little camera.
7-24-18. George Rd, Calais, VT. 2.6 miles today, 1448.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, insects
Today I took my recording equipment out for a hike up George Rd for another try at recording some bird songs, perhaps the last time I will hear some sing for this season. I also managed to catch a yellow warbler with my camera. Blooming today were helleborine and wild cucumber, while clematis was budding and milkweed was in fruit. I also found an odd looking evening primrose with long thin reflexed petals. For insects, I found 2 smooth green caterpillars, a wood nymph, a Virginia ctenucha, a confused Eusarcha, a variable laevigata, a Japanese beetle, a bumblebee, and a leaf hopper. I also checked on the waterfall on Tucker Rd--no water flowing at all, despite the rain Sunday and yesterday.
7-25-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT & Montpelier VT. 6 miles today, 1454.4 miles total.
Categories: blooms, road kill, city weeds, insects
This morning I took a brisk walk up Pekin Brook Rd towards town hall. Along the way, I watched for insects and road kill since I've already documented the plants along this many times over. I found some bumblebees and caterpillars (brown and green). I also came across a dead red-bellied snake and a dead beautiful wood nymph moth.
Later in the morning, I met 2 friends in Montpelier for a leisurely walk around some Montpelier neighborhoods looking for city weeds and insects. We found Mollugo verticillata, a geranium, a bindweed, a pearlwort, sand spurrey, cudweed, garden pink, a sunflower, an amaranth with red stem, volunteer pumpkins, and an Amur maple. I caught a robin, song sparrow, and house finch on film. We also found a long-horned flower beetle, some box elder leaf galls, some bumblebees, a Japanese beetle, a cabbage white, a monarch, a box elder bug, and some grasshoppers.
7-26-18. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais, VT. 3.8 miles today. 1458.2 miles total.
Categories: blooms, insects, birds, road kill
This morning I took a brisk walk up Lightening Ridge Rd towards the Calais Elementary school. A new bloom for the season was common nettle. I caught several renia moths on film, and some of a large flock of turkeys (36 altogether, including 14 1-month-olds). Lots of dead herps on the road today, including several American toads, a frog, and a red-bellied snake.
7-27-18. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1461.2 miles total.
Categories: fungi, insects, roadkill
I took a brisk walk up Peck Hill Rd this morning look for birds and insects. I found several Renia moths and a Herpetogramma. I also found a nice bunch of oyster mushrooms sticking out of the end of a rotten log. Roadkill for the day was a dead American toad.
7-28-18. George Rd, Calais, VT. 3.1 miles today, 1464.3 miles total.
Categories: blooms, road kill
This morning I went for a walk up George Rd towards Lightening Ridge. I found a live red eft that I helped across the road, but I also found a dead frog, a dead garter snake, and a dead red-bellied snake. It seems to be dead snake season around here, unfortunately. I found a rosy maple moth caterpillar and a Renia moth. Blooming today were burdock and wood nettles. I also found choke cherries in fruit.
7-29-18. Mansion Rd, Dunbarton, NH. 3.1 miles today, 1467.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, road kill, blooms, road crossers
This morning I took a bird walk up Alexander Rd and headed down Mansion Rd towards the Clough State Park entrance. There were no bobolinks in the neighbor's fields today, but instead, I saw a flock of turkeys including 4 adults and 6-7 young poults. Further down the road, I heard a commotion in a tree and saw a broad-winged hawk perched at the top of the tree, with an American goldfinch bravely trying to shoo it away from another branch. On my way back, I saw a pair of broad-winged hawks overlooking the road. What were they looking for? I couldn't help but wonder if it was the smorgasbord of dead frogs in the road. I found dozens of flattened frogs, so many that I finally stopped taking photos of each individual. I also found a few live red efts and helped them across the road so that they wouldn't be flattened. I also spotted a red fox crossing the road, safely. Plant finds for the day included early goldenrod, tick trefoil and poison hemlock in bloom, sorbaria gone to seed, and a sassafrass tree, something I don't see much way up north in Central Vermont.
7-30-18. Lightening Ridge Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1470.4 miles total.
Categories: galls, road kill
I took a brisk walk up Lightening Ridge Rd today. While walking fast, I managed to find a Virginia Ctenucha caterpillar and some leaf-borer trails, some in trembling aspen leaves and some in burdock leaves. Road kill for the dead was several dead red efts, some dead frog/toads (can't tell which), and an identifiably flattened bird. The excitement for the day was a flathead worm. I originally passed by it since I had seen several other earthworms along the road. But then I realized this worm was yellowish-orange and thin. I turned back to check it out, and sure enough, it was a flathead, not an earthworm. I also found a pile of glitteringly fresh coyote scat in the middle of the road.
7-22-18 Sneider Rd., Warren, NJ. 2.0 miles today, 317.25 miles total
categories: insects, fungi
In the evening I walked with our crew of high school friends (who come over, with my in-laws, every Sunday for dinner) down the side street near my house. I've basically photographed all the plants here, so I mostly concentrated on bugs, which amounted to planthoppers, Japanese beetles, and an ant before it started raining too hard for my camera. There was also a nutsedge I'd not seen here before and a mushroom.
7-24-18 Main St, Bound Brook, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 318.25 miles total
Categories: weeds
I took my son to get his own cell phone (on his own, unlimited data plan) today, which involved parking at the train station, realizing the meter there was broken, parking clear at the other end of the station, walking all the way back to the meter at the front, then back to the car to put the ticket in the window, then finally over to the store and back again. it was one block from our original parking spot, but we ended up covering just about a mile. Which gave me plenty of time to photograph all the lovely weeds in the lot.
No surprises here. Blooming were carpetweed, hedge bindweed, crabgrass, spotted spurge, prickly lettuce, silver cinquefoil, common groundsel, spotted knapweed, black medic, a hawkweed, indian tobacco, chicory, poke, white clover, and probably clammy goosefoot (the flowers are so tiny I really couldn't tell). A pigeon also posed for me.
7-25-18. Shop Rite, Somerville, NJ. 0.25 mile today, 318.5 miles total.
Categories: weeds, fungi, insects
I managed to lock my keys in the car for the first time I can ever remember. While waiting for my husband to bring me another set I walked around the parking lot looking for weeds. Unfortunately the grounds crew was also there cleaning up, so there were slim pickings. There was an interesting mushroom in the mulch, though, and a slime mold as well. Spotted spurge was blooming, and groundsel, and some planted black eyed Susans. And I found a fly, a lady beetle, and a fall webworm caterpillar.
7-25-18. Whiterock Park, Martinsville, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 319.5 miles total.
Categories: blooming
My dad came down from New Hampshire for a dermatology appointment today (never mind that he moved away 16 years ago, he still sees the one by me) and we went for a walk before dinner to see the view of the quarry at White Rock (or Chimney Rock, depending on who you ask) and check out the dam ("Buttermilk Falls"). He's fast and I didn't get many good photos as a result, which is fine as I've botanized here before. I did get burdock and an ant, pilewort, Queen Anne's lace, white vervain, some ticktrefoil/bush clover I haven't figured out, bottlebrush grass, a sycamore tussock moth, an unknown sunflower, nailwort, wild licorice, and a pretty orange fungus on a log. This is one of the areas that was burned intentionally last winter, but I didn't see much difference, aside from a whole lot more Japanese stiltgrass than there used to be.
7-25-18 Middlebrook Campground, Martinsville, NJ 0.25 miles today, 319.75 miles total
Categories: weeds
On the way home (not directly) we also stopped by this Washington's campground where the 13 star flag was supposedly first flown. Not much here, mostly privet and blackhaw, white clover, healall and some Deptford pinks.
7-26-18 Rutkowski Park, Bayonne, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 321 miles total
Categories: flowering, insects, mollusks, birds
I finally made it back to the Bayonne park I'd been meaning to revisit. Last time it was freezing, today it was very hot and sunny.
Unusual (for me) things I found included: a purslane leaf miner, alfalfa, an orange sulfur which held still long enough to photograph, a pipe full of European paper wasps, rockweed still attached to a rock, sea lettuce, ribbed mussels, oysters with both valves still attached, soft shell clams, a slipper shell, a quahog, sea lettuce, and slender snakecotton (Froelichia gracilis) a totally new plant for me.
Someone left chunks of both a pineapple and a coconut on the beach, which was very odd.
I also found fiddler crabs, sea rocket, wild bean, what I think were hermit crabs, raccoon tracks, my first tiger beefly of the year, and a giant sunflower something had planted in the middle of a rock pile,
7-29-18. Hicks Tract, Millington, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 322.5 miles total
Categories: flowering, weeds, insects, fungi
I walked this huge set of extremely well marked paths behind a local elementary school and still managed to take a wrong turn. But it all worked out in the end.
Interesting finds included green comet milkweed, black snakeroot, forked nailwort, a number of interesting fungi (none of which I can name), spider mites (which I'd never knowingly seen before), ebony jewelwings (not that uncommon for me, but lovely), several sedges, two st John's worts, a slime mold, a stinkhorn, and a red tailed hawk.
It sounds like we're both having a very busy summer...so great to read your notes about your walks, though. I love to read your weed reports and also about your special finds. Slime molds! Terrific! And pineapples and coconuts...? Who woulda thunk!
7-31-18. Murray Hill, Montpelier, VT. 2 miles today, 1472.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, invasives, blooms, sedges, insects
This morning I met 4 friends in Montpelier to go on a walk to and through the Murray Hill neighborhood. One of the group is an accomplished photographer who is getting started with iNaturalist. He is really into macro photographs of insects, so we paused to admire quite a few insects along the way, including maple leaf finger galls, honeysuckle galls, some grasshoppers, a micro moth, a dusky wing, a tiger swallowtail, a cabbage white, a ladybug, a wood nymph, some Japanese beetles, a giant black and gold speckled long-horned beetle, and a pair of mating wasps. I kept my eye out for odd or invasive plants, and dame's rocket, bee balm and purple loosestrife in bloom. We also found buckthorn, crabapples, and Amur maples in fruit. Other blooms for the day were hemp nettle and boneset. I found several interesting (to me) sedges, including Cyperus esculentus, Luzula multiflora, and Scirpus hattorianus. The birds were rather ordinary, with just some crows, goldfinches, and pigeons. We found a pile of feathers along the road, but it was more likely a predator-kill than a road kill. The road kill was a brown mass that contained some bones--a vertebrate is about all I could say for an ID. We were joined for much of the walk by a very social house cat. It stuck with us for about a mile, but it looked hot and was panting heavily, so we had to carry it part of the way back.
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