September 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
September 03, 2018, Randall's Island, Manhattan, NYC,
Less than 1/8 mile (I have Achilles tendinosis), insects, wildflowers
I went back, via taxi, to the Wildflower Meadow for two hours, because it is so extremely rich there in the summer. It was horribly hot (90º+) and humid, and the flying insects were all moving very rapidly. Butterflies: still lots of Pearl Crescents, Monarchs (adults and numerous caterpillars), and lots of Skippers, including now the Sachems, as well as Sliver Skippers, a Common Buckeye and Indigo Duskywings. I also saw a very tiny blue, which I would love to photograph (!), but it just would not settle, and I did not bring my butterfly net with me. What I need is a can of aerosol invertebrate tranquilizer!
Lots of big grass spiders, and a cute little jumping spider who had just enjoying sucking the juices out of a bug a little bit bigger than itself. And I finally got a good enough image of a beautiful Bembix wasp to get it IDed to species -- the American Sand Wasp.
My first ever true Assassin Bug -- the SpIned Assassin Bug. Very exciting!
Ed and I caught the bus to cross back into Manhattan proper. We got off at 2nd Ave and 126th Street, where I took snaps of a few weeds around the edges of a vacant lot that was more or less covered in asphalt. One was a dodder, but it was not in flower or fruit although luckily it did have some Dodder Gall Weevil galls on it.
September 05, 2018, East 86 and 87th Streets, Manhattan, NYC,
Less than 1/16 mile (I have Achilles tendinosis), weeds
I looked in the flowerbed on 86th on my way in to PT, and after my PT session I went round the back of the building to the long narrow weed bed there.
At the front, I was delighted to see that one of the two Tropical Mexican Clover plants had survived and re-grown after the sloppy weeding attempt that was carried out a couple of weeks ago. Yay!
At the back, the weed bed was lush and tall. I was very excited to find an orange-flowered Scarlet Creeper which is new to NYC. I also found a White Morning Glory which was new to me, and only the second iNat record of that species in NYC.
I photographed two very nice large flowering Hairy Crabweeds, which are hard to ID when they are very young and have no flowers.
I am still finding species in the big weed bed that add to the total of things I have found in there -- it is over 65 species of plant, not counting mosses -- pretty good, right?
I would love a can of invertebrate tranquilzer, too, especially for butterflies. And I'm always amazed at all the species you find in your small city plots of weeds, and so many southern ones, too.
9-1-18. New York Renaissance Faire, Tuxedo, NY. 3.0 miles today, 349.75 miles total
Categories: weeds, insects
My husband and I took Katie to the Ren Faire; Molly brought three of her friends and met us up there. We parked in the free lot, which involved walking over a wooded hill where there were lots of white wood aster blooming, but also ticktrefoil (the whorled and naked ones, Hylodesmum, mostly), and richweed. In the faire itself most of the edges are damp, so there was a lot of reed and purple loose strife, some burdock, trefoil, clover, and some goldenrod, where I saw a number of interesting wasps. I also found red chanterelles (one of the few fungi I can actually identify) and a few other mushrooms. And of course the faire itself was lots of fun.
9-5-18. East County Park, Warren, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 350.75 miles total
Categories: weeds, galls, insects
Katie had middle school orientation for an hour this morning, so I walked at a local park while waiting. It was amazingly hot and I was shortly covered in sweat and did not walk fast, but instead I found lots of insects.
First I walked on the edge of a mowed field where there was mostly mugwort with some goldenrod. Japanese stilt grass is blooming. On flattopped goldenrod I found the spindle galls in the flowers and the round black spots on the leaves, which, thanks to Susan, I think might be midge galls. I saw my first Symphyotrichum aster blooming of the year, a frost aster (there was lots of white wood aster as well). I was able to ID Solidago rugosa (whatever common name you use for it) and Canada goldenrod (I'm pretty sure). There was a large spotted orbweaver, a long jawed orbweaver, a bowl and doily spider, an orchard orbweaver, and a grass spider (the dew was all over the webs which made this much easier. I spotted several leaf miners in the goldenrod and a stem gall in the mugwort. And there were meadow katydids hopping all over.
I moved into the woods next but there was less going on there. There was jack in the pulpit in fruit. Back out of the woods, wild basil, red clover, and porcelainberry were blooming. the latter had a ton of yellow jackets. There was also an assassin bug of some kind (I didn't get a great photo), and silver maple with bladder galls.
Next I walked along a pond, and the arrow leaved tearthumb and small carpet grass were in bloom. There were several sedges and some woolgrass, too. There was boneset with a sawfly (and soldier beetles), flattopped goldenrod again with lots more spindle galls and paper wasps, willow with mite galls, lots of skippers of various kinds (I'm not good at skippers, but maybe Peck's and some spreadwings). I found a big grasshopper, and some jewelweed with petiole galls.
Two "Warren women" (perfect hair, nails, and make-up, but dressed for the gym) were walking the circular gravel path around the pond, and one stopped to ask me what I was looking for. I told her bugs. She was not impressed.
Ha ha! I am very impressed by what you found -- clearly I am not a "Warren woman".
You are really good at spotting galls. I love galls. Basically I love all plant pathogens of every kind -- fascinating.
9/6/18. Flat Rock Brook Nature Center, Englewood, NJ .75 miles, First Post!
I have been recovering from surgery and have hit a couple of rough patches so it is both important and necessary to take my camera and my iPhone and go out and look at plants and other treasures. Yesterday, I went to the Flat Rock Brook Nature Center in Englewood, NJ. I hoped that I would see some ferns, turtles, native plants and fruiting phases, and maybe some frogs.
When I got to the parking lot, I met a woman who asked me if I had seen any pipe vine swallowtails around. She had been told that they were hatching and that the butterflies were abundant, but I hadn’t/didn’t see any. We chatted for a bit, and she shared with me that her husband was a botanist and that she had just discovered a new plant identification book that she was finding very helpful. She couldn’t remember the name but said she would email the name which she did: an old standby - Newcomb's Wildflower Guide by Lawrence Newcomb. She noted that her husband had not told her about the book, “probably because he likes me to come to him for help identifying plants.”
I decided to head over to the pond where I was lucky enough to find three turtles lazing around on rocks in the middle: A Red-eared Slider, an Eastern Painted Turtle, and a Yellow-bellied Slider. I also photographed a water frog. A stand of very tall Late Boneset, backlit against the water, was especially striking. I headed back to the wildflower garden where Bonesets and False Nettle were profuse as well as Canada Clearweed. A tiny whitish-pink flower, looking very much like a Spring Beauty, was abundant on the ground. I needed help with this one which turned out to be Thunberg’s Geranium. There were at least three of our native ferns - Christmas Fern, Royal Fern, and Ostrich Fern. New to me were (with Sara’s id help) were Allegheny Monkeyflower and American Senna. I saw lots of yellowing Common Milkweed and one had fruit (seed pods?) covered with Large Milkweed Bugs. Altogether, it was a satisfying and peaceful time and I headed home feeling glad I had been there!
Welcome to the project, Sandy and Susan! One of my original motivations for starting this project was to regain conditioning after surgery, and the project has really helped me in that respect. Daily walks are so much more interesting when you have a hunt to engage all of your senses. It's great to hear about your weeds, insects, and turtles! Enjoy your walks, and do post your finds!
Thanks Erica, nice to be here. During the last two months I have been in the nearby city outdoor pool every single day running lengths in neck deep water, and surprisingly, as the weeks go by, I find all kinds of insects drowned in the water. So the pool counts as an iNat outing too. :)
I am wondering if it would be helpful to add to each post a live link for the first of the observations for each outing?
It would be neat, though I'm 3 months behind posting, so wouldn't be able to do it until I catch up
9/7/18 Overpeck County Park, Leonia, NJ
Looking for different phenophases of plants observed all summer, water birds, turtles, and maybe monarch caterpillars! 1.5 miles
It was a cloudy day - good for using an iPhone camera - and It felt necessary to go back to Overpeck County Park to see what was happening with all the plants I have been observing throughout the summer. So, it was pretty exciting to see all the changes that have occurred since my last visit.
Initially, I headed to the water and out onto one of the kayak launching docks. Overpeck County Park is an 800 acre park built around Overpeck Creek, a tributary of the Hackensack River. It appears to be a very large lake in the newer part where I like to explore. The park itself is built on and a capped landfill. It has invasive plants in profusion and a gazillion cottonwood trees and cottonwood tree saplings. There are, however, interesting and beautiful treasures in this place. Yesterday, there was very little bird activity but I saw a duck (pretty far away) that looked unusual to me so I used my Canon “point and shoot” camera to take many photographs - in case it actually was unusual. It turned out to be a female mallard but she is an unusually special bird with those striking blue feathers near her tail.
Near the dock, the Rough Cocklebur was filled with fruits. The stunning flowers of Swamp Rose Mallow were “gone by” (as my grandmother used to say), replaced by the elegant and beautifully structured seed pods. This was only enhanced by the nearby Goldenrods, Late Bonesets, and Purple Loosestrifes. Common Mugwort was pervasive! Now, in our world, it seems necessary to screen out the invasive plants or to incorporate them in some visually creative way because they are so predominant.
Near the dock, there is abundant Common Milkweed holding its own against the advancing Porcelain Berry, Honeysuckle, Grape, and Bittersweet vines. Milkweed fruit pods are so interestingly shaped and so interestingly attached to the plant. Focusing on them almost caused me to miss the two Monarch caterpillars!! Tada! What could ever top this?
From the nearby second dock, some dark birds were swimming way far out on the creek. Using the Canon, I could see that they were Cormorants so I took many pictures because long-distance digital zoom with this camera is tricky. When I later uploaded the photographs to my computer, I found that I had photographed an adult Cormorant and two juveniles! It was amusing and interesting to watch them swimming together on the Creek. It was also difficult to photograph them because either they are speed-swimming or under water.
The best thing was looking at the different phenophases of many plants. I have been in a Citizen Science program at the New York Botanical Garden phenologizing trees in the native forest for the past ten years, so it seems like second nature to study and look at all plants through that lens. At Overpeck, for instance, the Rugosa Rose had buds, flowers, fruit, and rose hips (“old or fallen fruit”). Truly, it was a “fruitful” day!
9-8-18. Martinsville Rescue Squad, Martinsville, NJ and Warren Twp,, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 351 miles total.
Category: Stuff I can't ID to species.
I hardly walked anywhere today, but I had a few moments before the CPR class, that I taught this morning, started and I checked out the front lawn of the squad building to see if there was anything I didn't recognize. All I came up with was a crabgrass, which I think was probably hairy. But I had to go look it up afterward to get that far.
In the afternoon I trudged back and forth through the yard hauling grass clippings and doing some weeding, but I took a break and walked through the (very weedy) vegetable garden looking for stuff I don't know. My husband found me a huge, velvety wolf spider. In the front corner of the garden, right next to the tomatoes that I've been harvesting for a month, I realized we have a cucurbit vine growing. To me it looks most like cucumber, but we've never grown cucumber on purpose. I will have to keep an eye on it.
There were two flatsedges in the garden that I've not keyed out yet. I always just call them all "yellow nutsedge", but clearly they were not the same species. There was one of the sparse, white smartweeds at the edge of the garden, maybe dotted? or waterpepper? (no water, though). I'll have to work on it.
I realized that half the stuff I'd been pulling (and cursing) and calling crabgrass was actually goosegrass. But the other half was actually crabgrass. I took photos before I looked crabgrass up and didn't get enough detail on the sheaths to tell which species.
There were lots of insects I'm shaky on: a candystriped leafhopper, a big cranefly, lots of hoverflies, and a tiny, shiny black fly with red eyes. I also photographed my first ailanthus webworm adult of the year, and I caught a stable fly in the process of biting me. The stable flies have been insanely abundant this year. We've never had any trouble with them in the past but now we cannot spend more than 10 minutes in the garden without getting bitten. We've changed the way we do compost, that may be the problem, or maybe it's just this extremely hot, wet summer.
Finally, I found an aster that I think might be frost aster, and a plant that reminds me strongly of Susan's mystery hibiscus-fleabane-aster. Unfortunately I didn't realize how similar it was until I'd already pulled it. Still leaning toward fleabane, though.
9-9-18. St. Martin's Church, Bridgewater, NJ. 0.25 miles today. 351.25 miles total
Category: things I can't ID
I'm having fun looking for things I don't know. It's suddenly cold and rainy after what felt like forever being hot and humid. I walked around the parking lot after church with an umbrella, looking for things I can't ID but think someone else could. There's a stone labyrinth in the back, and I found most things there. There were two rock lichens, a flatsedge, a goldenrod, another plant that could be goldenrod, two plants that I don't think are the same with just basal leaves, and something with fruit like a St. John's wort or a beardtongue, but not common St. John or foxglove beardtongue, so I'm stumped.
9/1/18. Dog River Recreation Fields, Montpelier VT. 2.6 miles today, 1561.9 miles total.
Categories: insects, blooms, sedges and rushes
This morning I took a walk along the margins of the Dog River Recreation Fields between the Montpelier sewage treatment plant and the Dog River. I’m not sure why this area wasn’t on our list of places to visit during the Montpelier Bioblitz in July. It’s actually quite interesting botanically, with a number of both native and alien species poking up in the gravely banks of the river. In bloom I found sunflowers, blue vervain, zigzag goldenrod, American hog peanut, spotted jewelweed with salmon pink flowers, Mollugo verticillata in full bloom along the gravelly river bank, white vervain, a small yellow flower that reminded me of Spergularia, and a small purple flower that might have been a Lobelia. I found Juncus tenuis and at least 4 other kinds of Juncus, Carex scoparia, Cyperus esculentus and Cyperus bipartatus, Eleocharis ovata and at least 3 other kinds of Eleocharis. I also found some clumps of Riccia in the mud, I think Riccia sorocarpa by the looks, although Lincoln’s liverwort book doesn’t show that that’s been documented in Vermont. For insects, I found some box elder leaf galls, bumblebees, honeybees, and wasps enjoying the copious Japanese knotweed, cabbage whites, a skimmer dragonfly, a giant cranefly, a Japanese beetle, a very fuzzy black fly, and a pair of box elder bugs pairing. From the recreation fields I walked out to the Montpelier train station. On the way, I saw a garden with a fig tree planted that seemed to be permanently planted in the ground and thriving. Clearly cultivated, but worth documenting anyway. A fig? In Vermont!
Impressed with the fig. Folks grow them here in NJ and they still worry every winter. I can't imagine getting it through your winters!
September 08, 2018, Randall's Island, NYC, NY, 1/8 mile
Category: Insects, marine life
https://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/susanhewitt/2018/9/8
On Saturday I took a taxi to the wildflower garden on Randalls' Island again, because it is packed with interesting things. The weather was windy, cool, overcast and spitting lightly with rain, so fortunately for me the insects were slow moving.
I photographed seven Graphocephala sharpshooters, all the pastel kind except for one dark red and turquoise beauty -- I am trying to learn to ID the species. I also snapped two gorgeous nymphs of the Red-shouldered Stink Bug. And three Meadow Spittlebugs. And one of those beautiful Green Lacewing larvae. Some flies, including Condylostylus occidentalis, and a Tiger Fly -- new to me. My prize find, however, was a Primrose Cochylid Moth: very small but very eye-catching because gorgeously colored -- front half peach, back half magenta. A new iNat record for NY State.
Sheltering from the weather in the tubes of flowers of Field Bindweed, I found what is probably a Brown-winged Striped Sweat Bee and one other small bee. Great place to hang out!
There was a minus tide low tide around 3 pm. In the Salt Marsh (thanks to an e-bird birder who had his binoculars trained on it) I saw a Yellow-crowned Night Heron, and on the little Wards Island beach I found most of the usual items, including lots of pretty red algae still, and yet one more mysterious shell of an Anadara bivalve species, exotic to NYC. I have found over 14 of these, one by one over the last 16 months, mostly one species, but also one of two of another species. Bizarre, but I suppose it must be the remnants of someone's old shell collection which might have been dumped into the kitchen midden that washes out there -- mostly glass and pottery dating from the 1870s to the 1940s.
Oh, and I found and photographed an Echinacea purpurea flower which was actually two flowers growing as if glued together back to back! I also photographed a bunch of leaves with holes eaten in them, leaf miners, galls, rust fungi and so on. Grab pictures of it all while it is still available, that's my motto!
Wow! I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since I could even get close to my computer--a lot has happened while I was away--thanks for the updates!
I loved the observations about the Warren women, Sara. Hope you got photos to submit! That's quite laudable, tackling species that you haven't been able to ID to species. I think everyone tends to shy away from such organisms, so they get under-reported.
Is there really such a thing as aerosol invertebrate tranquilizer, Susan? If so, I'd better not tell my Thursday walk friends about it. Wow, would they ever have a good time! Meanwhile, photos of drowned insects in the pool? That's really cool! As is the Primrose Cochylid moth. I have found a few ordinary primrose moths (Schinia florida) on my walks, but I hadn't heard of the Primrose Cochylid moth. I had to look it up--what a beauty!
Your suggestions about linking to observations is cool, too. Like Sara, I have a bit of a backlog (about 7500 from late spring to mid-summer). I'm hoping to catch up as the weather cools off. If you would like to add links to specific observations like the first of the day, by all means, go ahead. It would make a great addition to the journal!
Hi Erika. No, I guess aerosol invertebrate tranquilizer has not been invented yet, sad to say. And critters fished out from the swimming pool -- I wrote a journal post about that subject about two years ago:
https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/6995-wildlife-and-the-swimming-pool#activity_comment_2083229
9-10-18. Former Hoffheimer property, Warren, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 351.75 miles total.
Category: things I can't ID (but think someone else could)
My husband suggested an after dinner walk, and I suggested going somewhere interesting. He'd never been to the old "grotto" in town and hadn't seen the old Hoffheimer mausoleum in 20 years, so we went there. Everything is depressingly run-down and neglected, and the mausoleum covered in graffiti. However, despite it being cloudy, drizzling and nearly dusk, I found several interesting things:
There were three lichen I can't name, all growing on rock (I'm better with tree trunk lichen). There was a sparse, white smartweed, but my photos are not clear enough to key it out. Then there was two arching branches of something with opposite, compound leaves that turned out to be Forsythia suspensa. I had no idea Forsythia could have compound leaves.
Over by the mausoleum is the biggest patch of jimsonweed I know of, which made me think of you, Erika. On it I found a large cranefly, my only insect of the evening. There was a fern, a fungus, and flatsedge, and two grasses, one of which had cool, zig-zag stems and may be fall Panicum. And I took a photo of what I thought was a new plant that at home turned out to be a very wet Eclipta prostrata (false daisy).
Edit: It turns out my fungus is an oyster mushroom, neat!
9-11-18. East County Park, Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 352 miles total
Category: things I can't ID.
I had a few minutes before picking Katie (11) up to get her braces put on and walked along the entrance road to this county park, looking for things I don't know well. I found six grasses, I think one is fall panic, one is yellow foxtail, one is a mowed barnyard, one is just Jap. stiltgrass looking odd, one is deertongue, and one is hairy crab, but I'm not certain about any except the barnyard.
I found an ash seedling (I'm never confident on ashes, especially without fruit) and at least two goldenrods (tentatively Canada and wrinkle leaved) with at least one, maybe two types of leafminer. I found a brocade-type moss, a mustard, and two rosettes of leaves one of which might be evening primrose but the other is fuzzy and I don't know it. There was a tiny plant that looked like a messy St. andrew's cross with no flowers, and a mimosa seedling (which I rarely see).
Then there were two daddy longlegs (one was accidental, in the deertongue photo), a bee, four flies, two kinds of ants (one tending dark grey aphids on pilewort) a yellow jacket, and a striped orbweaver (which was in the porta-john, and I photographed it with the flash, and once again stepped out afterward to see people right nearby). Why do people only show up when I'm doing weird photography related things in porta-johns? I've used many a one without taking pictures and no one is ever waiting then!
Ha ha Sara! That's one of the lesser-known codicils of Murphy's Law, isn't it?
Somewhere I have a label button that says "Mad Scientist" -- I think we all also need tee shirts and hats that say that in large type, front and back.
9-12-18. Main Street (mostly), Somerville, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 353 miles total
Category: things I can't ID
I had 20 minutes between appointments in the nearest "city" to my home today, so I walked past an empty lot and the town library and some residential streets. I found hairy crabgrass, a magnolia fruit (saucer?), several lichens I can't name on a red maple trunk, a poor little bird that must have struck a window and died (I think it's a yellow rumped warbler), but the highlight for me was in the abandoned lot: Lactuca saligna, the first iNat record in the state, and a species the Invasive Species Task Force is not aware is in the state (of course, that assumes I'm correct in the ID).
Update: the bird is a yellowthroat female.
9-13-18. Dead River Rd., Lyons, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 353.25 miles total
Category: things I can't ID.
I had half an hour so I drove to this nearby powerline cut to walk. I found 8 grasses and 2 sedges (a flatsedge and a bulrush). I found two oaks and two or three smartweeds. One of the oaks was probably swamp white as it had a bullet gall. There were at least two kinds of goldenrod (plus flattopped) and the "other" tickseed sunflower (B. aristota instead of B. polylepsis, I think). There was a small white aster of some kind, and my first New England Aster of the year.
Insect-wise there were three crab spiders, only one of which I intended to photograph (they are very well camouflaged). There were 3 flies, 2 ants, 2 katydids, a set of aphids, two other spiders, a tumbling flower beetle, a large and interesting all black true bug, a plant hopper, and a bumble bee. Galls wise, the bullet gall, a spindle gall on flattopped goldenrod, a leaf gall on the same, and a leaf gall on a more canada-looking goldenrod. I also saw goldenrod bunch galls but didn't take a photo.
9-14-18 Lenape Park, Springfield, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 354 miles total.
Categories: Things I can't ID, insects, wetland plants
This is mostly damp to wet fields and woods edge in suburbia. There's something of a dike with a bike path on it, but I avoided the path and walked the edge of the mown grass.
I found: the white smartweed again, decided it's P. hydropiper. One of the tiny white asters (S. ericoides?), 6 grasses i wasn't sure about: dallis, green foxtail, goose, Virginia rye, a Panicum (I think) and another I have no clue on. Likewise 4 flatsedges ( think short leaved, straw colored, rice, and a skinny one I can't figure out) and 4 sedges (almost Gray, maybe fox, maybe crested, and maybe sallow).
There were bugleweeds. One I was sure was American, but the others, not so much. There was a maybe green ash and a maybe American elm. There were both sweet and spotted Joe Pye weeds, I think, and a probable Canada goldenrod.
Interesting plants I did know were lizardtail and hempvine, plus an iris in fruit.
Then there were insects, tons of them: flies (picture winged, flesh, mosquito, crane); dragonflies (12 spot and ebony jewelwing), 2 monarch caterpillars (one of which I found by noticing the huge droppings, so that was my "scat of the day" for Erika) and what i think is a Virginian tiger moth caterpillar.
There were three separate restless bush crickets, all three missing their left rear leg. There were shining flower beetles (I think) on goldentop, something that I can't even decide if it's a wasp or a fly (I think wasp), ants tending aphids, and a green stink bug nymph, milkweed bug nymphs, and some tiny beetle larvae.
I also found tiny amber (I think) snails, and at least two kinds of spiders, one of which I think is the labyrinth orbweaver (which I figured out from the eggs described in Charley Eiseman's book. The other day someone tagged him in one of my iNat observations, I hadn't realized he was on here an got a little fan-girl-y, but he hasn't commented).
Then there were leaf miners: goldenrod, grape, hempvine (new to me) and sweetgum (also new, and a caterpillar fell out of it). And galls: two different ones on oak leaves, a goldenrod leaf gall and a goldentop one, big grape stem galls, that almost look like giant grapes themselves, and the goldentop pedicellate gall I love to find.
It was quite the day, and took me over an hour to go not even a mile.
Great fun with the grasses and galls, Sara! And sedges, too! And I loved the outhouse story! My downfall is my urge to photograph every piece of roadkill I see. My husband gets annoyed when he's walking with me on city streets and I have to pause to shoot the roadkill from the middle of a crosswalk with cars coming. In comparison, outhouse photography seems quite civilized and safe.
9/2/18. Adamant, VT. 2.3 miles today, 1563.2 miles total.
Categories: butterflies, birds, dragonflies
This morning I went for a bird walk along the shores of Sodom and Adamant Ponds. I caught a cabbage white butterfly, some monarchs, a sulphur butterfly, and a viceroy. I also saw some wood ducks, black ducks, a Canada goose, a hairy woodpecker, mallards, turkey vultures, red-breasted nuthatches, a black-throated green warbler, and an eastern phoebe. At the end of my walk, I also got to spend some time with a spotted/solitary sandpiper (I wish I could tell the difference!). I found an autumn meadowhawk along the road, a pair of paired spreadwings, and some paired meadowhawks with the females laying eggs in the water near the shore of Adamant Pond.
9/3/18. Montpelier, VT. 1.7 miles today, 1564.9 miles total.
Categories: imperiled trees, invasives
This evening I took a stroll through downtown Montpelier after dinner. I’ve had trees on my mind lately, especially the various species that are under threat from various insects and pathogens, including especially white ash, eastern hemlock, American elm, American beech, and sugar maple. I’ve decided to keep an eye out for them on my walks, to try to record where they can be found now in case that ever changes. This evening I found white ash, hemlock, and American elm all apparently self-seeded in the city. I caught numerous gray squirrels, but no other animals. And I found an attractive Japanese knotweed plant keep under control and forming a living fence between 2 properties. Also, some Sorbaria out of control. That stuff spreads!
9/4/18. Peck Hill, VT. 2.5 miles today, 1567.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, imperiled trees, road kill
This afternoon I walked from my house up Peck Hill and back. I caught up with a mixed flock of warblers on Peck Hill, including some black-throated greens and a common yellowthroat. Other birds for the day were an eastern phoebe, some song sparrows, a chickadee, and a hairy woodpecker. Trees I photographed today were a white ash, an eastern hemlock, and an American beech. Also, a Scots pine—have I ever found Scots pine on Peck Hill before? I should check. Road kill today was a garter snake and a flattened frog.
9/5/18. Montpelier, VT. 1.5 miles today, 1568.9 miles total.
Categories: city birds, street weeds
This morning I walked through the center of downtown Montpelier with the photography club from the senior center—we were 3 people today. I decided to join the club’s weekly walks in hopes of getting inspired to start taking photographs of things besides weeks again. Ah, but the weeds were so distracting! I found some mercury, wild cucumber, gallant soldier, sow thistle, box elders, a Norway maple, fireweed (Erechtites hieraciifolius), and white cedar growing where they shouldn’t (between the cracks of the sidewalk, in flower planters, between the stones of the State St bridge). And even a lone sprig of helleborine along the curb. I also photographed some pigeons, mallards, and a song sparrow.
9/6/18. Montpelier, VT. 3.2 miles today, 1572.1 miles total.
Categories: birds, weeds, insects
This morning I met my friend for our weekly insect walk. It was a bit overcast and we didn’t have a lot of time to walk. Still, we managed to find a bag worm, a honeybee, and some green caterpillars, as well as a gray squirrel a blue jay, some pigeons, a crow, and a song sparrow. I also spotted some horseweed, a smartweed with sparse white flowers, a mercury, and some Japanese knotweed.
9/7/18. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 0.7 miles today, 1572.8 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I joined the Nature Center’s weekly fall migration bird walks, together with Sean Beckett and about 6 other birders. I was late for the walk this morning—I didn’t notice that they had changed the time for this fall’s birdwalks from 7:30AM to 7:00AM. Oh well—next week I’ll have another chance to get there early. The weather was quite foggy, so there weren’t many birds flying. Still, I managed to catch some black-throated green warblers, a flycatcher, a blue-headed vireo, another yellow warbler (pine?), and a chickadee.
9/8/18. Chickering Bog, Calais, VT. 2.4 miles today, 1575.2 miles total.
Categories: insects, fungi, sedges and rushes
This morning I met a friend and we walked together out to Chickering Bog. Fortunately, the resident goshawk pair is long gone, so we were able to enjoy the Bog in peace. We found a katydid, a Carolina grasshopper, and a box elder bug in the parking lot, and some painted turtles out at the Bog, sunning on the shore of the open water patch. We also found some horned bladderworts in bloom out there. We looked for sedges and found Carex limosa, and well as another Carex and Juncus that I haven’t been able to ID yet. We also found dozens of fungi, including 2 kinds of chanterelles, some coral fungi, puffballs, a Ganoderma, and lots of gilled mushrooms. My tree of the day was an American elm.
9/9/18. Adamant, VT. 2 miles today, 1577.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, road kill
This morning I got out my bird lens and went birding along Sodom and Adamant Ponds. The big birding thrill of the day was spotting a pied-billed grebe, a water bird that is not a mallard or a wood duck and yet I can still recognize it. I also saw goldfinches, robins, a hairy woodpecker, a blue jay, a flock of Canada geese, a crow, a cedar waxwing, and a mourning dove. I caught two butterflies, a monarch and sulphur, and found an Acronicta dactylina caterpillar. Road kill for today was 2 red efts.
9/10/18. Montpelier, VT. 3.5 miles today, 1580.7 miles total.
Categories: imperiled trees, insects, birds
This afternoon after a meeting at the Nature Center, I walked down the invasives trail and made a loop around the town ball fields back to the Nature Center. Along the way, I shot a box elder, an American elm, a sugar maple, and a butternut. I found a basswood leaf gall, a bumble, and a Halysidota tessellaris caterpillar. Birds for today were a chickadee, an osprey, and a song sparrow.
9/11/18. Tucker Rd, Calais, VT. 3.6 miles today, 1584.3 miles total.
Categories: imperiled trees, birds, road kill
As soon as the rain let up this morning, I took a walk up to Tucker Rd to check on the waterfall. Still no water flowing over the rocks there, but scenic nonetheless. Along the way, I found slugs and a red eft crossing the road, and a very dead frog and a dead eft in the raod. I saw a large flock of turkeys across a field, and paused to watch a hairy woodpecker attacking a tree. My imperiled trees for the day were beech and sugar maple.
9/12/18. Montpelier, VT. 1.7 miles today, 1586 miles total.
Categories: insects, imperiled trees, fruits
This morning I met up with the photography club (4 of us today) at the senior center for the weekly walk around town. My random category for today’s photographs was “seasonal”, so I had a good excuse for looking for weeds and trees. I found Virginia creeper, honeysuckle, and Japanese barberry in bloom. I also spotted an American elm, sugar maple, and eastern hemlock on the streets, as well as a honey locust and buckeye seedling (it was the seasonal foliage that called attention). I found both a red squirrel and a grey squirrel, as well as some spiders, a lady bug, a monarch, and a cabbage white. During the walk, we paused for a coffee break along the river and some ducks came by. I called them mallards, but my naturalist friend in the photography club said they were black ducks. “Their heads are different, can’t you see?”. No, I don’t see the difference, but I’ll take her word for it—they’re black ducks, not mallards.
9/13/18. Montpelier, VT. 3 miles today, 1589 miles total.
Categories: invertebrates, imperiled trees
This morning I brought my 2 insect-loving friends to an area on the west side of Montpelier called Redstone. It’s an old red stone mansion built by a prominent family in Montpelier in the late 1800s. Recently it was owned by the state and used as an office building. Now the parking lot is filled with state vehicles, but the property is up for sale for several million dollars. The grounds in front of the building are deep forest. And the morning fog had not yet burned off by the time we arrived, so there were no pollinators flying about. In order to find insects, we had to turn stones and rotten logs and broaden our interests to invertebrates. We found several spiders including a small brown one and a tiny shiny green one. We found a dark brown millipede and a light tan Petaserpes millipede. Also, several tiny brown centipedes and a tiny white thing that might have been a centipede. And a tiny shiny brown thing that looked like an Orthopteran. On the bottom surface of a rotten log we found a light tan leaf hopper with dark patches at the end of its wings. We found 2 kinds of slugs, one an Arion and one perhaps a leopard slug, and several isopods. At the edge of the property is a stream with running water, and in the pool of the stream my friend spotted some small fish. Beside the stream we turned over a rock and worm leaped out, hauled back, and feigned an attack, just like a snake. Crazy snake worm--The subject of the talk by Josef Görres I planned to attend at the Nature Center in the afternoon! Other finds of the morning were a Lophocampa caryae caterpillar, a Paraclemensia acerifoliella caterpillar (my friend picked apart his leaf pancake to get a good look), a green caterpillar with black markings on top, a lovely specimen of Zelus luridus, the trails of a Parthenocissus leaf miner, and some jewelweed galls. As we were walking back to the car out in the sun, we saw a monarch, and a wild indigo duskywing. The imperiled tree of the day was eastern hemlock.
After the crazy snake worm talk at the Nature Center, Görres took us out on a worm hunt in the community gardens on the Nature Center grounds. In addition to finding plenty of snake worms, we also found a real snake—a northern redbelly, and a tiny snail shell.
9/14/18. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 1.1 miles today, 1590.1 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I attended the weekly fall migration bird walk at the Nature Center, led by Chip Darmstadt; we were about 6 birders in all. In the morning fog, we watched some song sparrows, goldfinches, and a blue jay in the community gardens. We also watched a catbird eating some Virginia creeper berries. Then we came across the bird banding table where several of the staff naturalists were recording data and banding birds that they had caught in their mist nets. We watched them process a common yellowthroat. For bird banding, processing includes recording gender, weight, wing length, body fat estimate, brood patch presence, and an age estimate based on feather number and wear or skull size. Just as we left the table to do some more bird watching, a call came over the radio requesting help at one of the nets. They had caught a sharp-shinned hawk, which doesn’t usually happen in a mist net. Chip helped extract the hawk from the net and the measured and photographed it, but didn’t band it because they don’t have permits for hawk banding. We also watched the staff band a chickadee and a cat bird, and we almost got to see them band a song sparrow, but it got away while they were taking it from the net. The next birds at the banding table were an ovenbird and a Swainson’s thrush, both rather uncommon in the mist nets. The birds are definitely on the move!
Hi, Erika, I enjoyed catching up on all your walks. I'm also envious of all the folks you have to walk with, particularly ones who are patient with photographers!
Sorbaria is something I've never seen in person, interesting that it's so weedy there. Our ashes are just starting to die in obvious numbers here. The hemlocks are basically gone, aside from a few along streams. We have lots of young American elms, assuming what I'm seeing is actually American; I've been involved in several heated debates on the subject of elm identification (which I'm not very good at). Beeches mostly seem to be hanging in there here, and sugar maples are much less common than red or Norway here but I've not noticed a change in the twenty or so years I've been watching them. My mother mentions that Sudden Oak Death is also a concern, particularly here in NJ, should it get established on the east coast.
I totally get being distracted by weeds. My kids all roll their eyes while I go bending down to photograph something interesting when we're just trying to cross a parking lot or whatever.
I liked your pied billed grebe. To your list of waterbirds I can ID I'd add brant and common merganser (and Canada goose) but that is it. Everything else has to go up for someone else to get for me.
I wonder if your tiny white thing under a rock was a symphylan. I find them there a lot.
My brother in law and his wife met while working with mist nets at Point Reyes in California, but I've never seen bird banding in person, and would love to.
September 15, 2018, Randall's Island, Freshwater Wetland WildFlower Meadow. 1/16 mile (Achilles tendinosis) 2.5 hours
Categories: arthropods, plants
Back to my current favorite spot that is easy access via taxi or bus and involves very little walking for my poor, still-painful, injured leg. I started by photographing the big patch of rare Summer-Cypress under the RFK Triborough Bridge. Then I spotted a nice pink and cream Mecaphesa crab spider waiting for lunch on a Rudbeckia flower. Then an Asian Lady Beetle with a little bit of Green Beetle Hanger fungus on it. And a pretty nymph of the Red-shouldered Stink Bug.
There were lots and lots of Sachem skippers, and a vast number of beautiful Orange Sulphurs (or are they Clouded Yellows)? There were none of those here last weekend.
My googling very recently made it clear to me that numerous yellow squares occurring between small veins on Common Hackberry leaves are caused by the Hackberry Island Chlorosis Virus. I wish iNat would make a logo for viruses. And one for bacteria.
I rolled a log and found a nice Big-headed Ground Beetle, as well as a Brown Centipede, and two species of small snails. My cataracts make it too hard to see the 2 mm snail species though, it if still lives under that log.
Inside a partly rolled leaf, I was delighted to find a really plump female Restless Bush Cricket -- that was new to me. I also found two nice small species of jumping spider, one on a leaf and one on the wood of a sign. I was thrilled to see a gorgeous Buffalo Treehopper (new to me) at arm's length in the wildflowers, but it flew off before I could photograph it.
Going home, we got off the bus at 126th St and 2nd Ave, and I investigated some roadside weeds, as well as a rather small park where the JFK Bridge feeds into the avenues and streets, and some orange-fenced tree pits that had extremely tall weeds (and trash) in them. Found dodder, Climbing False Buckwheat -- I seem find that far more often than anyone else in Manhattan -- I wonder if people are overlooking it? The tree pits had Groundsel Tree and Late Boneset -- I think those seeds must have blown over the bridge from Randall's Island!
September 16, 2018, Randall's Island again, Freshwater Wetland WildFlower Meadow. 1/16 mile (Achilles tendinosis) 2.5 hours
Categories: arthropods
Went back again to the Wildflower Meadow before NYC summer ends (husband and I are off to California for 3 weeks next Sunday, back late on Oct 14). I was thrilled to find two Locust Borer Beetles -- new to me. And, as well as all the Clouded Yellows, I finally I got to see one (or possibly two) big huge lovely Cloudless Sulphurs. I tried really hard to photograph one, even at a distance, but no luck.
I rolled a log and was highly delighted to find a used pot from a Eumenes potter wasp -- my first clay pot made by an insect. My other thrilling find was a Spined Assassin Bug. I found my first one 13 days before, and it is possible this is in fact the same individual just grown larger. It was in the same part of the meadow.
I photographed a very nice White Maze Polypore fungus, and minutes before the bus came, I found a reddish-brown mantis, and I carried it over to the bus stop so it could impress my husband with its peculiar insect charisma.
I've had so much trouble photographing Sulfurs. And I've only seen about two potter wasp nests ever. Very cool find.
Oh, OK! I thought maybe the potter wasp pot would be "old hat" to you Sara.
Gosh, I wish you folks could join our little Thursday morning walk group in person! The 3 of us who do the walk together are all fascinated with insects, but not very knowledgeable. We're learning as we go, one species at a time. Green beetle hanger fungus? Potter wasp pots? We're going to need to look for these! On my Wednesday walks with the photography club, they are used to folks stopping all the time to take photos, but usually of architectural features or people, not weeds. And on the Saturday morning hikes, I have to be careful not to take too many photos or I'll fall behind. The Saturday morning folks are somewhat tolerant of photo stops but if I go overboard they continue on without me.
Around here, only a few emerald ash borer beetles have been found. I don't know that any ash trees have actually been killed by them yet, but folks are starting to cut down their ashes anyway. Elms struggle along, and we basically only have American elms growing wild along the roads or in the woods, so I assume every elm I see is Ulmus americana. Sugar maple decline is becoming more common, but sugar maples abound in the woods. We still have lots of eastern hemlocks. Beech bark disease takes a lot of the beeches, but they are still common as well. Especially in the woods around our house, which is one reason why there are so many bears in our neighborhood. And many butternuts are succumbing to butternut canker.
The Locust Borer Beetles are at least native, and endemic to the east. The Green Hanger Fungus is fairly common on Asian Ladybeetles, but unless your close-up vision is superb, you may need some magnification to see it -- it's often at the back end of the elytra. It's not very green, looks more like a bit of short white fuzz or bristles.
As Sara already commented, Erika, From my perspective you are lucky to have group outings, even though their interests and yours do not always coincide exactly.
And come to think of it, you are both fortunate to be able to go on walks. I hope that is something I can start do before the end of the year arrives and winter weather along with it.
9-18-18. Historic Speedwell, Morristown, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 354.75 miles total:
Categories: things I could ID, things I couldn't ID.
As my daughter would say, I guess I looked for all of the things. But I hate to go somewhere new without making an effort to document what's there. This time I did try to focus on things I don't know.
This is a restored village but I also walked a bit of "Patriot's Path" a trail connecting many of the historic sites in the area. Both parts were basically the edge of junky woods, though the historic site had an interesting damp area by one of the old houses.
I found buckeye seedlings all over the place. This is unusual for NJ. Wish I knew how to tell which species (but of course I didn't think to photograph the buds). I found a tall and lanky grass I don't know (but saw again today), a leaf miner in pilewort, a small white aster that might be heath aster, a big cranefly, 2 mosses and a fungus, and three things that really intrigued me:
There was what might be a spikemoss. If so it would be the first in that entire order in NJ. And I found a plant with tiny tiny leaves that might be the Sibthorp's waterpennywort that Susan found in NYC, which I thought would be a first for NJ as well, but it turns out I've already found it last year! Neat looking plant either way. Finally there was a mysterious gray dusty substance all over some birch leaves, with no obvious insects associated with it. Not at all sure what it was but am thinking something like wooly aphids.
Very cool -- I Look forwards to seeing the Sipthorp's. Currently we are packing and prepping to go to California for three weeks starting this Sunday, and in the hotel there the WiFi is usually terrible, so I don't; know how much I will be able to be in contact!
9-19-18. Gabriel's Fountain, Martinsville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 355 miles total.
Category: things I can't ID
I took Becca and Katie out for ice cream after they got their flu shots. They sat on a bench to eat it , and I wandered the property looking for things I can't ID. The shop is owned by a florist, so there were lots of potted plants I don't know the name of. Suddenly Becca came dashing around the far side of the building, "Mom! Mom!..." (I thought, what on earth happened to Katie?) "... a praying mantis!" My girls know me very well. There was indeed a huge Chinese mantis walking up the doorpost of the store.
I also found: a grass that might be goose grass but that was not blooming, a yellow daisy-type flower, a yellow flower that reminds me of a showy version of purslane, something like a garden version of beardtongue, but with only one flower, a cream colored maybe mandevilla flower, aphids on a coneflower, and another little yellow tubular flower.
Thanks so much for the clues about the green hanger fungus! What a cool new fungus to learn about!
A spikemoss? How very exciting! I found my first one this winter during the 20 minutes I had to wandering the rainforest in Martinique. I don't think I've ever seen any here in Vermont (and probably wouldn't know if I had...). Very cool find!
Have a great trip to California, Susan! We are looking forward to seeing what you find out there!
9/15/18. East Montpelier Town Forest, Adamant, VT. 1.6 miles today, 1591.7 miles total.
Categories: fungi, imperiled trees
This morning all 4 core members of our Saturday morning hike group gathered for our first official walk of the season. We generally take the summers off from walking together because of summer gardening and travel. We headed up into East Montpelier Town Forest which has trails right down into downtown Adamant. The trail system in the forest is quite confusing, and the maps posted on trees at key intersections seem to add to the confusion. But we managed to get in and out this morning entirely on our intended route without getting lost. A massive achievement! I’ve hiked this trail and surveyed its plants extensively, so this morning I focused mainly on fungi. I found lots of gilled mushrooms including some Entoloma, Phellinus, puff balls, and a yellow parasite fungus growing on another mushroom. Also, some pink spots of Alfred’s cakes on a dead log, a Daedaleopsis confragosa on a log, loads of coral mushrooms (Ramaria?), and a couple of shiny hemlock varnish fungi (Ganoderma tsugae). My imperiled trees for the day were white ash, hemlock, and beech.
9/16/18. Sodom and Adamant Ponds, Adamant, VT. 1.5 miles today, 1593.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, dragonflies, road kill
I took my Sunday morning bird walk in Adamant this morning. In addition to lots of wood ducks and some mallards on the ponds, I also saw a pied-billed grebe, and I got to spend a half hour watching a blue heron eating breakfast. I even got a photo of one of the fish in its bill. In the air and in the trees around Adamant, I saw a blue jay, a gray cat bird, a northern flicker, a black-capped chickadee, a brownish warbler of unknown-to-me species, a vireo (maybe Philadelphia?), a cedar waxwing, some Canada geese, and a belted kingfisher. Dragonflies that I saw included a meadowhawk, an eastern forktail, and common whitetail (or was it a widow skimmer?). Road kill today was two red efts.
9/16/18. Hubbard Park, Montpelier, VT. 0.3 miles today, 1593.5 miles total.
Categories: imperiled trees, invasives
This afternoon I got a short bonus walk in at Hubbard Park when the concert I had come to attend started an hour after the posted time. I found some butternuts, white ashes, and beech trees. I also found a buckthorn loaded with fruit and a hillside of lily of the valley. In the grass in front of the main stage I caught an ichneumon wasp.
9/17/18. Hayden Rd, Calais VT. 2.9 miles today, 1596.1 miles total.
Categories: imperiled trees, animals, blooms
This morning I went for a walk through North Calais and my favorite wooded road there, Hayden Rd. Along Hayden Rd I found some beech, hemlock, white ash, sugar maple, and elm trees. I managed to catch up with a curious hermit thrush peeking at me through some hemlock boughs, chased a red squirrel, and I think I caught a robin. For blooms today I found some erect stems of bluestem goldenrod…hmmm…they usually droop. Could it be a hybrid? And a nice patch of beech drops in full bloom. On my way back down Hayden Rd, I happened across a magnificent toothy white fungus. I think I might have seen it in a book of edibles before, but I can’t remember the name. This is definitely the first time I have found it in person.
9/18/18. Sodom Pond Rd, Adamant VT. 2.5 miles today, 1598.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, imperiled trees, road kill
This afternoon I felt like taking a walk up Center Rd from downtown Adamant, but when I got there I found the road crew busy at work and kicking up an enormous dust cloud. Meanwhile, Sodom Pond Rd had construction signs around it saying it was closed, local traffic only. What an invitation—I headed straight up Sodom Pond Rd. No traffic at all, except for a couple of road crew trucks laying new culverts. I found some hemlocks, beeches and sugar maples (in full fall foliage). I saw plenty of wood ducks and a few mallards on the pond. And I even saw a purple finch, at the top of a dead elm. Road kill today was a hickory tussock moth caterpillar, a squashed toad, and a recently demised garter snake. Turtle head is still blooming along the road, and I managed to snap a blurry photo of a monarch.
9/19/18. Montpelier, VT. 2.1 miles today, 1600.7 miles total.
Categories: unexpected plants, weeds, squirrels
I spent the entire morning watching our next-to-last monarch chrysalis. The caterpillar had conveniently hung himself on our deck and I’ve been checking every day to see if it was “ripe” yet. Last night, I noticed that the shell was going transparent, so this morning I gathered my equipment and plunked down to wait for the show. The chrysalis was hanging on the outside of the deck. I didn’t want to disturb it by moving it, but I also wanted some close up views as the monarch eclosed. I brought out a ladder, several cameras with different lenses, and a book to read. Just before noon, I noticed the chrysalis seemed to be a little swelled. Two minutes later, the bottom of the chrysalis opened like a hinge and the monarch popped out. I got to watch it over the next hour as it adjusted its mouth parts and inflated its wings.
But that meant that my walk had to wait until after dinner. By the time I finally got out to walk, the sun was sinking fast. I had to use my on-camera flash to get any photos at all, and I had to cut my walk short because it was getting too dark to see. I always seem to forget how quickly we lose sunlight hours in the fall. Still, I found some creeping bellflower, a dotted hawthorn, and a yard full of mayapple. The mayapple was no doubt planted, but I photographed it anyway (I’ll tag it as cultivated). A couple of years ago, a researcher came up from Massachusetts seeking mayapples that were thriving, planted or not. She was interested in native plants outside their native ranges so she wanted to visit all the mayapples I had posted on iNaturalist.
As I walked in the neighborhood behind Vermont College, I recalled that last time I walked here, there was virtually nothing to photograph. Every last thing was cultivated. Determined to record at least something this time around, I hunted down some sidewalk weeds and came up with puslane, ragweed, sow thistle, wrinkle-leaved goldenrod, wild cucumber, and a patch of Jerusalem artichoke that probably got started as someone’s compost tossed over the hill. I found a white ash, an elm, and then a red pine growing precariously between the stones at the top of a rock wall. And LOTS of gray squirrels, everywhere.
Was the "magnificent toothy white fungus" Lion's Mane by any chance?
Oh, yes! That's it indeed! Thanks!
So cool to get to watch the emerging monarch! You have reminded me that I've not seen turtlehead or beechdrops at all this summer/fall. Will have to go look for some. I just saw my first red maple showing fall color the other day; we are still very summery here with heat and humidity to match.
9/20/18. Cummings St, Montpelier, VT. 0.4 miles today, 1601.1 miles total.
Categories: insects, invasives, imperiled plants
This morning my 2 insect-loving friends and I walked the Invasives Trail between the Cummings Street housing project and the North Branch River. Such an odd, odd, odd park! I guess the area was so filled with invasive species that the park commission figured it would be pointless to try to control them. Instead, they hacked a trail through the knotweed and posted some random placards in random places with information about various invasive species such as Japanese knotweed (present), garlic mustard (not present), and Norway maple (not present). Not signed were the bishop’s weed (in bloom again), dominant in the understory, or Phragmites (a large patch in the center, whose seed heads were being harvested for disposal by a crew of park Vista volunteers). Just across the river were some beautiful properties with waterfront seating. With the location of the housing project in a cul-de-sac between the forest and the river, it could really be a stunning, exceptional location. Instead, the city seems to be actively promoting ugliness and discouraging visits by people interested in nature. Can’t help but think it’s because of the proximity of the housing project in their own isolated ghetto. And yes, there were about 40 new seedlings planted along the trail, all honey locusts! I guess they didn’t want to dilute the invasives with native trees.
Despite the cool and overcast weather, we managed to find quite a few insects. Hymenoptera was our biggest group. We found a bumblebee, a honeybee, some wasps (Vespula acadica, I think), ichneuomon wasps, and a bald-faced hornet trying to make up his mind whether to chase us or continue eating his slug. We found a green stink bug larva and a cluster of box elder bugs at various age stages, a lightning bug (Ellychnia corrusca?) and a tiny yellow and brown beetle, a crane fly (Nephrotoma ferruginea?), a grasshopper and a cricket, galls of Eurosta solidaginis, some spiders, dusky slug, and a land snail. And several caterpillars, including Lophocampa caryae, Lophocampa maculata, and a very tiny black fuzzy caterpillar with a yellow stripe. We also found a butternut and beech invading the invasives plot, and a plant with star-shaped seed pods that I didn’t recognize. Maybe I know it in flower? And some fungi: Entoloma, a white fungus in a Salix alba trunk, jelly spot, and some inky caps?
9/21/18. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 0.8 miles today, 1601.9 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I joined the bird walk at the Nature Center led by Sean Beckett, Zac Cota, and attended by 8 other birders. It was overcast, cool, and soon started to rain, so we didn’t have much luck spotting birds. We found 1 small mixed flock of chickadees and warblers near the parking lot. Further out on the property, what seemed to be the same flock flitted past us again. Near the community gardens, we found a trail of green beans and green bean leaves across the path between a hole in the fence and the shrubs. Crime scene! One of the walkers gathered the evidence to eat for lunch. Across the bridge we came across another crime scene, some bird feathers in the path. They were fluffy little breast feathers, and we speculated what they could be. A few steps later we found some feathers with dots on them, and Zac and Sean wandered if it could be a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk. Then a few more steps down the path we found long brown feathers—brown thrasher, they decided. And reasoned that it was probably a terrestrial predator that committed the crime since the feathers were spread in several clumps along the path. Just as we were finishing our walk in the rain, we came across a northern cardinal in a tree and a bald eagle flying over head.
9/22/18. Stranahan Forest, Marshfield, VT. 2.2 miles today, 1614.1 miles total.
Categories: fungi, imperiled trees, fall bloomers
This morning I went hiking with 3 friends in the Stranahan Forest in Marshfield. Two of the friends had fungi on the mind--they were out to do some serious edible mushroom picking. They walked at quite a clip. Sometimes I couldn't keep up with them even when I wasn't taking pictures. They were quite successful at filling their baskets. Meanwhile, I managed to photograph an incredible variety of mushrooms for one morning. We found puffballs of at least 2 kinds, coral mushrooms of 2-3 kinds, yellowfoot chanterelles, lion's mane, oyster mushrooms, jelly babies, eyelash cups, Peziza, Amanitas, Russulas, Lactarius, boletes, and dozens more. We also found some gentian in bloom, and then acres of beech drops. Imperiled trees for today were sugar maples, beeches, white ash, and hemlocks, plenty of each.
9/23/18. Sodom Pond and Adamant Pond, Adamant, VT. 1.6 miles today, 1615.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, road kill
This morning I took my weekly bird walk through downtown Adamant. In addition to the "usual" wood ducks and mallards, I managed to catch the pied-bill grebe that has been hanging out on Sodom Pond for the last few weeks. I watched a northern harrier coasting slowly over the shore and then perching on a stump overlooking the water. The harrier was being harried by a over 60 crows who would not let him be. They finally managed to chase him off, then flew off to the south end of the pond. There was also a great blue heron across the pond from the road. In the trees I saw lots of robins, some goldfinches, and some chickadees.
Heading over to Adamant Pond I found a phoebe hanging out in front of the church and a pair of yellow-bellied sapsuckers working on a power pole. Then on the pond itself I found lots more wood ducks, a few mallards, about 18 geese, and an American bittern. Plus a belted kingfisher perched on the power lines. A warbler approached close enough for a photo--maybe a magnolia warbler. And then a large shorebird flew in calling loudly. A great haul for birds. Road kill today was a collection of flattened toads.
9-20-18. Farmstead Park, Lyons, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 355.75 miles total.
Categories: I can't ID to species, galls.
I went looking for Acalypha galls that I had seen before in September on the banks of the Passaic River here. The trail, however, was blocked by a huge tree that I bet fell in the storms last winter (judging by the lack of mowing). So I bushwhacked through the brambles, tearthumb, poison ivy, 3 kinds of burs, and insane numbers of mosquitoes over to the riverbank, where I failed to find any Acalypha at all, with or without galls. But I did find a number of things I couldn't ID. Then, nearly back to my car, at the edge of a nice, accessible, mowed playing field, I found two of the plants, covered in galls. All that bushwhacking for nothing. Luckily, despite wearing capris, I do not seem to have gotten any poison ivy or ticks.
Among things I don't know, I did find: 5 fungi, 1 moss, 6 grasses, 4 smartweeds (2 of which I'm fairly sure I know), 3 sedges, 2 asters, 2 ashes, 1 elm, 1 water hoarhound, 1 willow herb, 1 grape, 4 spiders and a daddy long legs, 8 flies, 4 planthoppers, 3 grasshoppers, 2 possible firefly larvae, 2 crickets, 1 wasp, 2 leaf miners, and 6 total galls including the one I was originally looking for (some of those I knew as well).
9/24/18. Montpelier, VT. 1.7 miles today, 1617.4 miles total.
Categories: birds
This afternoon I had hoped to get out to a new area in Montpelier for a walk. Instead, I walked around and around through town looking for a sandwich. We've had a major reduction of restaurants in town this month, with a loss of 4 and gain of 0. And the places that remain open and have been known to serve sandwiches in the past have shrunk their hours. It took me 4 tries to find a sandwich at 4 pm. Meanwhile, I got to tour around downtown, looking for birds, fungi, and out of place plants. I found a flock of common mergansers on the river, which was rather unusual, but it is migration season, so anything could happen. Also a juvenile robin and a pair of song sparrows on the bike trail, an American crow in the river near the mergansers, and another in a dead elm tree over the river. Downtown was a large flock of pigeons on the edge of a building overlooking the North Branch. Road kill of the day was a red squirrel squished in a pedestrian crossing. The only fungus I found was a polypore in a cultivated crabapple. Speaking of cultivated, I found 2 sycamore trees on the high school lawn, trees that I have walked past practically every day this summer. I don't know of any other sycamores in the area, and they're an important food species for certain moths, so I shot the sycamores and tagged them as cultivated. At least if someone is researching the moths and wants to know if there are any sycamores in the area, maybe these cultivated trees will show up in a search.
Wow--what a treasure hunt you had at Farmstead Park! Way to go!
9-23-18. Marshlands Conservancy, Rye, NY. 1.75 miles today, 357.5 miles total.
Categories: plants, insects, birds, fungi, shells
For complicated reasons, I drove my sister to Greenwich, CT (on her way home to Boston from a business meeting in Iceland; it didn't make much sense to me, either) on Sunday, and then went looking for somewhere interesting to walk. I saw this conservancy on the Long Island Sound that looked promising. It's next door to a historic mansion that was having a festival that day, so was amazingly crowded, but the trails I walked were fairly empty.
There were a number of common weeds in the mown grass where I parked, and when I got home I found I accidentally also photographed a cranefly. I found some bittercress that I would have assumed was hairy bittercress, but someone recently convinced me that most summer rosettes like that are another species. Now if I can just remember which!
I found a lady beetle with hangar fungus that made me think of both of you, Susan and Erika. The first main section I walked was a path between woods and a meadow full of goldenrod and, oddly, swamp smartweed, P. hydropiperoides (usually that's a surprise for me and never more than a few plants. Here there were easily hundreds). I saw a number of small white asters I'm working on IDing, a new smartweed with white flowers with dark purple centers, what I think is sweet joe pye (I'm working on those, too). And there were a lot of galls: leaf galls in goldenrod, goldentop, and pin oak, and pedicellate galls on goldentop. Plus goldenrod and aster with leaf mines.
I met a group of people coming up the path, excitedly watching something off to the side. It was a huge flock of turkeys, three of which were walking across a bridge. "Why did the turkeys cross the bridge?" they asked, "to get to the other side, of course." I've never seen turkeys on a bridge before.
There were so many different goldenrods, I'd bet nearly a dozen species, including silverrod, canada, rough stemmed and seaside, which are the only ones I could ID. Then there was a lovely big dark purple aster that I think is S. patens.
I left the field to climb down a hill to the salt marsh where there was groundsel tree, marsh elder, sea pickles (glasswort), saltmarsh asters, and sea lavender (that I could not remember the name of for the life of me, drove me crazy). The groundsel and the seaside goldenrod were covered in little flies with a red hump that I want to call lovebugs, but I think that's a southern species. maybe some entomologist will Id them for me.
Then there were shells: mud snail, oyster, ribbed mussel, blood arc, slipper, scallop, quahog, and softshell clam that I could ID and some more (one medium snail and one teeny tiny one) and some barnacles that I can't. There was rockweed and sea lettuce, too.
On the way back I spotted a chipmunk, rabbit tobacco, and some kind of smallish sunflower. I tried to walk up the west side of the big meadow to get back to my car and ended up having to bushwhack most of the way there, but they must have a huge deer problem as there was almost no brush to contend with.
On the way out I crossed the goldenrod meadow and was thinking I've yet to see any locust borers this year. Looked down and there were two! So then I said to myself, I'd not seen any goldenrod spiders or assassin or ambush bugs on this trip, but none of those worked. Worth a try. Crossing the mowed lawn I found a wood sorrel covered (actually edged like hoarfrost) with a grey slimemold. It was pretty if you didn't look too closely. Quite the day, and I'm very glad I stopped.
Erika, it's interesting how often I ignore trees, especially planted ones. I'll look and realize I've passed something interesting countless times. I did not know the sycamore hosted any moths. Down here they are wetland weed trees. Interesting that you don't get them up there; I've seen them marking the brooks by my parents' in southern New Hampshire.
September 24th 2018, Encinitas California, 0.75 mile (way too much for me!)
Plants
I got up early. First I went out and pottered around the hotel grounds, looking for weeds, finding a few things including Dandelions and Dichondra (species D. repens maybe?) but being seduced by cultivated Hibiscus and Plumeria. Then, a bit later on, I bravely (risking pain in my leg) walked down the slope to the other side of B Street, which is the edge of Cottonwood Creek Nature Preserve, and walked along there a bit to where the Mile-a Minute weed starts to completely smother the creek banks. Such a pretty plant with such gorgeous flowers.
I found myself to be quite rusty on ID-ing the local plants both native and introduced. I could recognize most of them visually, but often I could not recall even the common name. How could I forget a name like Mule Fat???
But I did remember Coastal Goldenbush, Telegraph Weed, Buffalo Gourd, Fountain Grass. I am grateful I got some ID help from San Diego botanist Dr.Jon Rebman
Later still Ed and I went to Palomar Airport to pick up a rental car. I also made observations of a few cultivated plants and, although it was neatly gardened there, I was able to find a few weeds, including a Matted Sandmat.
Ed drove us back and I saw all kinds of spectacular plants that I would have liked to photograph on the sides of the freeway. I photographed a feral pigeon perched on a supermarket frontage, and spent far too long hiking round that gigantic food store so we could stock up the motel room kitchenette.
Afterwards we made a brief stop at my friends' house to pick up a bike lock for my knee scooter. In their front garden I photographed a weed that was new to me; I believe it is Four-leaf Manyseed. And I could not resist photographing their magnificently multi-colored hybrid Hibiscus bush, about which Sara commented that the flower was so extremely colorful it looked as if it had had help from Photoshop.
Thus my day started and ended with Hibiscus.
Common names are funny, you said mile a minute and I pictured Persicaria perfoliata, which has neat triangle leaves, striking berries, thorns, and flowers that are so boring I had to go look them up and check that I hadn't missed something good. But I bet you meant Ipomoea carica which I've IDed for friends and does have lovely flowers. Apparently there's also a bean and a grass with the same name (and a weevil: is it particularly fast? ). edit: nope, it eats P. perfoliata.
Ah yes, this Mile-a-Minute is Ipomoea cairica. If you look at the photos with my observation you will see how lovely it is. The flowers are huge and an amazing color:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/16874184
Perhaps we should call it Cairo Morning Glory.
Because my photos are uploaded in real time as I take them through the app,, you can always go to my calendar and click on today's date to see a page of my photos for that day.
9/25/18. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 3 miles today, 1620.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms
This morning I took a quick walk up Peck Hill Rd to Fifer's Run, trying to get some outdoor time before the rain hit. Of course, it began raining right at the 1.5 mile walk, but luckily I wore my raincoat, so I could tuck my camera out of sight to keep it dry. Along the way I paused to watch and listen to a mixed flock of warblers. There were some chickadees in the flock, and at least 2 brown creepers. I haven't seen a creeper since July. A patch of mixed flowers also caught my eye, all with cordate toothed leaves, zigzag goldenrod (Solidago flexicaulis), heartleaf aster (Symphiotrichum cordifolium), and white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata). I only saw 2 fungi today, which surprised me--I guess I need to go deeper in to the woods to find mushrooms. An ink cap and a Russula. The roadkill of the day was a flattened frog/toad.
What a great trip to Marshlands Conservancy, Sara! All those salt marsh plants and shells! And I loved your magical way with locust borers!
Looking forward to seeing more of your California trip, Susan! Have fun hibiscus hunting!
9-26-18. Montpelier, VT. 1.6 miles today, 1622 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects
This morning I met up with 5 other members of the Photography Club at the Senior Center and we walked through town together. We started out walking through the grounds of the recreation center, down the railroad tracks, and across the street to the Shaw's parking lot. We spent about 1/2 hour in the edges of the parking lot, watching birds in the river. There was a lovely great blue heron posing in a rock near where we were standing, some mallards down the way, and some common mergansers in the distance. A crow flew overhead, and a turkey vulture. Plenty of pigeons milled about watching us from the rooftops. Then a belted kingfisher appeared, fishing along the river. As we walked back through the center of town, I also checked on the house sparrow colony near the guerilla garden (now a pocket park). I found a cricket, some oleander aphids, a wasp, and a box elder bug, as well. Plus I noticed a silver maple, possibly wild on the edge of the Shaw's parking lot by the river and more Carolina horse nettle blooming by the old train station. For me, the goal of my outings with the photography club is to practice taking beautiful photos. But I got so wound up in catching birds and insects today that I forgot about snapping some pretty pictures. Oh well--maybe next time.
9-25-18 Dealaman Pond, Warren, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 358.25 miles total
Category: things I can't ID
I walked to this pond to see turtlehead, as I've seen none so far this fall, and did indeed find it. On the way there were lots of goldenrods and asters that I can't ID, though I suspect all the asters were the same species. There were also ashes and oaks I'm not comfortable doing without fruit or bark. And two clusters of fungi, one very yellow.
Down at the pond itself there was a different (purple) aster, a grass I don't remember seeing before, and bur reed in fruit. And these adorable looking smeared dagger moth caterpillars, eating both loosestrife and cattail.
I also found a dotted sharp shooter, some baby spiders on an eggsac, the first of the blackberries turning red for fall, and several goldenrod and grape galls and grape, white snakeroot, pilewort, and wood aster leaf miners.
9-26-18. Miller Rd., Martinsville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 358.5 miles total
Categories: Can't ID, fall color
I stopped here briefly on the way home from Weight Watchers. There was an attempted assault of a 40 year old woman by a stranger here about a month ago (they caught the guy), which is almost unheard of in our area. I was the only one here today (though a mailman drove by as I was leaving), but I've been here so many times I just can't get my head around the idea that it might be dangerous.
At any rate, I looked for things I couldn't ID: There was a sparse white smartweed that's either waterpepper or dotted; an elm that's probably American (and changing color), yet another goldenrod I can't ID, what I think is path rush, some little rosette of leaves I can't even get to family, either Japanese or Korean bushclover, and two different colors of flatsedge (but maybe the same species). Fall color included the elm, a single, big red maple, and lots of Japanese angelica trees just starting to turn their spectacular bright pink. They are very invasive, but so pretty in the fall (rather like burning bush and Japanese barberry).
9/27/18. Cummings St. Trail, Montpelier, VT. 0.4 miles today, 1622.4 miles total.
Categories: Insects
This morning my 2 bug-loving friends and I continued our explorations of the Cummings Street trail in Montpelier. Today we headed up the bike trail towards the Nature Center but only got as far as the picnic area, and only the southern end of the picnic area. The bugging was quite rich! We found a box elder bug and a brown stink bug, plus a two-spotted stink bug larva and a green stink bug larva. Also, a ladybug larva, a woolly bear, a Haploa caterpillar, and a hickory tussock caterpillar. We bumblebee, yellow and black wasp, honeybee, ichneumon wasp, Polistes fuscatus, and an Andrena bee. We also found flocks of grasshoppers of at least 2 kinds, a black and white fly, an indigo duskywing, and a Japanese beetle. At the picnic area, I shot a white-throated sparrow and a song sparrow. For trees today, I collected a butternut and silver maple. We also found highbush cranberry and hawthorn in fruit, as well as multiflora rose. The local pre-school across the river was having a field trip in the picnic area when we got there. It was great to see the kids out playing in the grass and chasing bugs, just like us.
9/28/18. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier VT. 0.8 miles today, 1623.2 miles total.
Categories: birds
This morning I joined Sean Beckett and 5 other birders for a warbler walk around the grounds of the Nature Center. Chip Darmstadt joined us part way through the walk. We started the walk through the community gardens, watching song sparrows and Lincoln’s sparrows in the corn, sunflowers stalks, and tomato cages at the community gardens. Further down the trail we saw chickadees, cat birds, blue-headed vireos, a phoebe, some black-throated green warblers, a Swainson’s thrush, some robins, some cardinals, a northern flicker, a yellow-rumped warbler (butter butt), swamp sparrows, a Nashville warbler, and a white-breasted nuthatch. We also got some very close looks at a red-eyed vireo. I also got some photos of a dotted hawthorn in fruit. That seems to be the most common hawthorn on the property.
9/29/30. Robinson Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 1.2 miles today, 1624.4 miles total.
Categories: fungi, imperiled trees, roadkill
This morning I met my 3 Saturday morning hike friends for a stroll along some trails of the Robinson Hill Rd network. Once again, 2 of them were collecting edible mushrooms, so all eyes were peeled for fungi. One of my friends even spotted a lion’s mane fungus growing on the side of a standing tree a long way from the trail. She really enjoyed eating the lion’s mane fungus that she picked last week, so now I think those fungi are going to seek her out. We saw plenty of puffballs, both the edible kind and the poison pigskin. The neophyte fungus picker was all set to harvest some poison pigskins. We had to point out the difference in appearance between the edible puffballs and this one. She seems mushroom-crazy right now. I wonder how long before her enthusiasm gets the best of her. A tidbit of knowledge and a heaping of enthusiasm can really get you in trouble. We saw some honey mushrooms (and didn’t pick them), some boletes (my other friend won’t let go of the idea that all boletes are the same mushroom), and some cup mushrooms. We also saw a yellow-rumped warbler and a red eft. Imperiled trees in this forest were beech, elm, sugar maple, and ash. Along the road we found a dead red eft and a dead garter snake.
As we were coming out of the woods a hunter came up behind us. He told us he was hunting bear and carefully kept his rifle pointed at his feet. Glad it wasn’t pointed at us, but it seemed to be endangering his toes. It was an assault rifle. What fun.
9/30/18. Sodom Pond and Adamant Pond, Adamant, VT. 1.6 miles today, 1626 miles total.
Categories: birds, road kill
This morning I took my regular Sunday morning bird walk through downtown Adamant. In the wetlands across from the store were a flock of song sparrows. Perhaps some other sparrows, too, but all I managed to shoot was song sparrows. Out on Sodom Pond, the first water birds I saw were a pair of double-crested cormorants, the first I've seen in Adamant this year. Also on the pond were lots of woods ducks, some mallards, and the pied-billed grebe. A lone Canada goose flew overhead as well as a great blue heron. Near the bend in the road in the scrub I came across a flock of 5 red-eyed vireos and some black-throated greens. On the way back to Adamant I found a blue-headed vireo and several catbirds. Up at Adamant Pond, I found lots more wood ducks, a pair of mallards, a pair of double-crested cormorants (the same as the ones on Sodom Pond, or different?), a flock of 5 robins, a yellow-rumped warbler, and another warbler. And a pair of large shorebirds flew over head. For roadkill today, there were plenty of flattened frogs and toads, a single red eft, and some woolly bears.
Reading your last two posts in a row had me imagining the hunter shooting woolly bears, which made me smile.
9-26-18. Top of the World Park, Green Brook, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 358.75 miles total
Category: things I can't ID.
I stopped at this small park on the way home from physical therapy: I've irritated either a nerve in my back or my "good" IT band, at any rate, I'm hurting when I stand a long time, drive a long ways, or walk far. At least "far" is over a mile. Today I did much less. As far as stuff I don't know it was mostly small bees, goldenrods, and asters. But there were lots of polinators at the goldenrod here and I spotted a number of galls as well (leaf and pedicellate)
9-27-18. Chestnut St., Union, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 359.25 miles total
Categories: unintentional plants, galls, miners, insects
I have driven up this road many times but never walked it. The area I chose passes under two old highway overpasses, and had three tiny memorial parks (two for veterans and a graveyard). Lots of weeds. Things I don't see very often included a pigeon, purple deadnettle, garlic chives, common blue aster, grape phylloxera, and a panic-type grass. There was a ton of bittercress that I think is nursery bittercress, which I've never knowingly seen before.
September 27, 2018, Cottonwood Creek Park, Encinitas, San Diego North County, California, 1/2 mile
Categories: fungi, native plants, insects
I was fortunate to be able to meet up with my good friend @finatic (B.J.). We decided to go to the nearby park, which I had explored a little bit a couple of days before, while still quite jet-lagged. Although most of the park is neatly gardened, the part that runs along on either side of Cottonwood Creek is wild and overgrown.
First I showed BJ the amazingly tall Sandy-Stilt Puffballs that I had I found growing near the railroad. Then I showed BJ another fungus -- the plant pathogen "Common Brown Spot, Leaf Spot on Clover", a very ungainly common name but a new species for iNat. BJ showed me Sycamore Scale and Sycamore Lace Bugs. Then he showed me so many different kinds of galls on the Coastal Live Oaks, in addition to the big Oak Apples that had already noticed.
We photographed a lot of different leaf miners on the Toyon bushes, and I got to photograph several insects including braconid wasps, Condylostylus, a Vivid Dancer damselfly, and a nymph of a Scudder's Bush Katydid.
I had forgotten to put in my bag the accessory magnifying lens for my iPhone X so I struggled to get an image of one of the extremely minute thrips that BJ showed me were living inside the blossoms of the non-native planted Yucca.
I did notice that the northeastern end of the park leads into a canyon which is completely ungardened, so one day soon I will try to walk up that trail a bit, if my leg will let me.
9-28-18. Mountain Park, Liberty Corner, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 359.75 miles total
Categories: I can't ID, mines, galls
I walked here at sunset, as I hadn't walked all day. Thee were mostly goldenrod and asters that I didn't know, but I also found some grasses, grapes, smartweed, and sunflowers that I can't ID. Gall wise were goldenrod bunch and leaf galls, and goldentop pedicellate and leaf galls., plus grape phylloxera and two pin oak leaf galls.
I found a bullrush which was sprouting leaves among the seeds, kind of like wild garlic does. I wonder if it was a virus like aster yellows making it happen.
9-29-18 Strait Lane, Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 360 miles total
Category: unintentional plants, insects, fungi
Behind my physical therapist is a bit of a meadow owned by the town with some paths mowed through it. I walked here and found goldenrods, asters, and flatsedges I dont' know, plus a flat white lichen, a mountain mint, what might be bushy bluestem, an agrimony, two ferns and two mosses I can't ID, several bees, a crane fly, and a skipper.
9-29-18. Patriot's Path, Far Hills, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 361.5 miles total
Categories: fungi, insects, unintentional plants
Patriot's Path is a planned and half built trail system connecting most of the historical sites in the county north of mine (Morris). I walked from Willowwood Arboretum to the east to the current end of that segment and back. It doesn't really go anywhere here and is obviously not well travelled, but follows an underground gas pipeline so is mowed and raised above the surrounding swamp.
I found goldenrod, asters, grasses, mosses and a ton of fungi that I don't know. I found a leafmine in New England aster that I'd not seen before. There were linden viburnum, golden ragwort, and richweed, which are rare for me. There were about half a dozen species of smartweed that I will have to work out. I saw my first mantis ootheca (what a great word) of the fall among some brilliant barberry berries. There was wild asparagus in fruit, and just as I was leaving, a bunny.
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