July, 2019: 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
7/1/19. Tucker Rd, Calais VT. 2 miles today, 1895.4 miles total.
Categories: trees, birds, insects, blooms, galls
This afternoon I took a leisurely stroll out Tucker Rd in Calais. I had in mind to check to see if the showy orchis was still there, and it was, although the blooms had gone by. Blooming today were Virginia waterleaf, some roses, an unfamiliar bedstraw, and the first black-eyed susan of the year. The surprise of the day was finding some purple clematis blooming in the woods. Hmmmm...must have spread from the nearby garden. Other invasives were garlic mustard, greater celandine, wild chervil and wild parsnip. I found a good crop of galls today, including basswood leaf galls, a round ash leaf gall, some poplar leaf miners, cherry leaf galls, elm leaf galls, and some columbine leaf miners. Insects today were some syrphid flies, a green fly, a small red waspy, some skippers, sweat bees, a white admiral butterfly, a calligrapher beetle, and a black and white wasp. Mating today were a pair of craneflies. I managed to shoot an indigo bunting and a robin, despite the limited camera that I was carrying. I also found some dogwood golden canker. Apparently, the distribution of dogwood golden canker isn't well documented, so I figure I should try to shoot some every day that I see it. Which is almost every day in Vermont.
7/2/19. Dover Rd, Montpelier, VT. 1.6 miles today, 1897 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, trees, blooms
Today I met up with my 2 insect walk friends for a walk up to the water tower on the east end of Montpelier. The weather was warm, so we had great success in our insect hunt. We found tiger swallowtails, grapevine leaffolders, skippers, a friendly probole moth, some grass veneers, and our first monarch of the year, nectaring on milkweed. We saw some honeybees, sweat bees, bumblebees (including a tricolored bumblebee and a giant queen bee) and some black and yellow moths. Beetles today were some lightning bugs, a black beetle, and a pair of black and gold beetles mating. We managed to catch several grasshopper nymphs and a green bug crawling up some grass. We also saw a magnificent 12-spotted skipper and some scorpion flies. And a pair of robber flies mating. I managed to catch some jumping spiders and several different kinds of spiders in webs. Galls today were cherry leaf gall and an ash leaf gall. Blooming today were moneywort and wild chervil (mostly finished). I noted a hop hornbeam in fruit, also a small mountain ash and a white ash.
7/4/19. Silk Farm Rd trail, Concord NH. 3.2 miles today, 1900.2 miles total.
Categories: invasives, insects, blooms
This morning I headed out to the bike trail near the Audubon Society with my husband. He was on his unicycle and I took a little kick scooter. Along the trail were lots of invasives, including burning bush, wild chervil, honeysuckle, multiflora rose, and Japanese barberry. I also noted some unfamiliar grape leaves, some milkweed starting to bloom, some witch hazel, and a few patches of poison ivy. Plus some sedges, which distracted me greatly from my scootering. Insects today were a tiny brown caterpillar, a bluet, a honeybee, some skippers, and a lightning bug.
7/6/19. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.3 miles today, 1900.5 miles total.
Categories: arthropods
This afternoon I did an arthropod survey in our backyard and field. I found lots of skippers, some white admirals, a Virginia ctenucha, a tiger swallowtail, a Harri's checkerspot, and also a wood nymph just inflating its wings. Bugs today were a brown grass bug, and yellow and black grass bug, and 2 kinds of spittle bugs. I also found 2 kinds of black and red milkweed beetles, the long thin kind and the fat round kind, and a blister beetle. Plus plenty of grasshopper nymphs and several scorpion flies. I've been trying to pay more attention to spiders since our spider photography course in Maine last month. Today I found a jumping spider, a brown leggy spider, a brown and white spider in a web, and a crab spider, plus a harvestman. Now I just need to learn more about spider identification...
7/7/19. Adamant, VT. 1.4 miles today, 1901.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, Arthropods, blooms
This morning I took my regular Sunday birdwalk in Adamant. I walked the full route that I used to do for the first time since November. I found song sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, swallows, an eastern kingbird, a goldfinch, a cedar waxwing, a yellow-rumpted warbler, a broad-winged hawk and a chipping sparrow. I got some good close-ups of a some robins with their beaks full of almost identifiable worms. And also a magnolia warbler.
Arthropods today included bumblebees (tri-colored, and possibly Bombus terricola, which has become quite rare in VT), a bluish thread-waisted wasp, and a yellow and black wasp, some syrphid flies and robber flies, a tiny yellow caterpillar in a daisy and a brown caterpillar in the road, and both kinds of red and black milkweed beetles. The dragon hunting was great, with lots of bluets (one pair mating), an eastern forktail, a violet dancer, an ebony jewelwing, a chalk-fronted corporal, a 12-spotted skimmer, a Hudsonian whiteface, an emerald, and a dead skimmer in the road.
Blooming today were black knapweed, purple columbine, winterberry, bush honeysuckle, purple iris, Allegheny monkeyflower, mullein, blue vervain, and marsh Saintjohnswort. Budding were Joe Pye weed and helleborine. The plant surprise of the day was some garden coriander growing along the side of the road, apparently untended and unintended.
7/8/19. Cabot Rd, Cabot, VT. 2.6 miles today, 1904.5 miles total.
Categories: trees, Arthropods, blooms, invasives, ferns
I took advantage of the perfect walking weather today for a leisurely stroll up Cabot Rd between Woodbury and Cabot. I haven't walked this stretch before, so I watched for trees and ferns. I started with a dead elm, then added tamarack, beech (in fruit), white ash, sugar maple, striped maple, mountain maple, yellow birch, white birch, hop hornbeam (in fruit), apple, hawthorn, white pine (ailing), balsam fir, hemlock, trembling aspen, balsam poplar, and something with mostly fungi-infested small fruit, which I have tentatively identified as a plum. Other plants for today were sweet white clover, Canada thistle, white columbine, red baneberry, milkweed, highbush cranberry, hazelnut, serviceberry, spikenard, some roses, and dogbane. An oddity was a large white bellflower, no doubt escaped from someone's garden.
The goutweed was in full bloom, and I think I'm starting to respect it a little more. Every patch of goutweed in the sun was loaded and buzzing with pollinators including lots of butterflies. I found a paper wasp, some bumblebees (possibly another Bombus terricola), sweat bees, a red wasp, a honeybee, and a large black and white insect that might be a wasp or a mimic and plenty of syrphids. Plus skippers, a wood nymph, lots of white admirals, a fritillary and a Virginia ctenucha. And I smooshed some mosquitoes and deer flies. I added a white spider in a web and a red spider in a web. Mating today were a pair of ladybugs.
The mystery of the day was a freshly severed cow foot, from hoof to ankle, lying in the road. Hmmm. Hardly had any blowflies, and not a single carrionfly, so it couldn't have been there long.
7/9/19. Calais Rd, Worcester, VT. 2.8 miles today, 1907.3 miles total.
Categories: insects, trees, invasives
This afternoon I walked a ways up Calais Rd from Worcester Center. Even though this road is paved and has quite a bit of traffic, the cars didn't seem as menacing as on the paved state highways. An additional benefit of walking on a paved road is that the dogs are securely contained within houses or strong fences. One came out to greet me, but I was glad to see it was behind a fence. I found lots of non-natives and invasives along this stretch of road, including alsike clover, pineapple weed, Sedum acre, musk mallow, Japanese knotweed, wild chervil, multiflora rose, black elderberry, valerian, chicory, bishop's weed, common columbine and day lilies. The ragweed is budding up as well. Since I haven't walked this stretch before, I did a tree inventory, and found balsam poplar, big-toothed aspen, trembling aspen, cottonwood, red maple, sugar maple, striped maple, mountain maple, ash-leafed maple, white ash, black ash, yellow birch, white birch, white pine, black cherry, staghorn sumac, American elm (live and dead), white willow, honey locust, alder, hazelnut, hemlock, basswood, beech (in fruit), plum, red spruce and red oak, a surprise. I also found the mother red oak, a planted lawn tree.
Lots of insects today, but even though there was plenty of blooming goutweed, the insects were elsewhere, often in the hop clover and the black knapweed. I found tricolored bumblebees in hop clover, dogbane and knapweed. Other insects were a brown hornet, a honeybee, carpenter bees, a northern amber bumblebee, a fritillary, a thrytirid moth, lots of skippers, a cabbage white, and my first Japanese beetle of the year. I also found a red bluet damselfly, but my photos are really lousy. And an interesting multicolored spiky caterpillar that I've not seen before. I also managed to find my daily dogwood golden canker.
In the evening, I took a short walk through our backyard to see what was in our blooming milkweeds. I found a flower beetle, 2 kinds of milkweed beetles, some bumblebees and other bees, and a small black moth that I don't recognize.
Your tree survey was neat: we have almost no poplars, no native spruces, no striped or mountain maples, virtually no yellow birch, and red oak is probably our most common oak.
7-7-19 Warren, NJ, 0.25 miles today, 513.25 miles total
categories: blooming, fruiting, insects
I took a walk around the yard after dinner. The wineberries are ripe and there were fireflies everywhere, including a mating pair. Lots of types of flies as well, most of which I can't come close to IDing.
There was a fasciated (I guess) Setaria that had three flower heads growing from one stem, and I found a 14-spotted lady beetle, one of my favorites.
7-8-19 Passaic River Park, New Providence and Berkeley Heights, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 514.75 miles total
Categories: insects, sedges, interesting plants
I returned my youngest daughter's flute today (she's switched to baritone saxophone of all things), and walked near the music store, in three different spots.
First was a powerline cut behind a gas station, around a little electric substation. There was some dry, weedy, frequently mown area and some less mown stuff, both dry and wet. I also stuck my head into the actual wet woods beside the cut. Interesting species included an escaped leatherleaf viburnum (or maybe planted and long forgotten?) "real" hops (as opposed to the much more common Japanese), a Lactuca without spines, as well as the usual prickly lettuce, ergot in a wild grass head, that was extremely exciting, and the first record in NJ (even though I don't know the species). A viburnum with wide-winged petioles that I'm fairly sure is nannyberry, very uncommon in this part of NJ. 2 different Hypericum spp. A recent iNat discussion made me realize that a lot of the "dwarf st. john's wort" I've been seeing is actually spotted st. johns wort. This one was not clear, but the ones I found later were definitely the spotted (I also found the common). sweet annie, and pennycress were the last of the interesting plants. There were also two dragonflies I don't know (which is 95% of dragonflies).
Second stop was an actual hiking trail through wet woods that I'd walked before, but I took a slightly different turn at the end (and shortly came across a choice between a deeply flooded path or crossing on top of a round concrete sewage pipe, I chose option 3, turning around). This was not as interesting an area, as the deer are overwhelming, but there was Japanese wisteria, lots of blooming fringed loosestrife, and a chipmunk.
The last stop was by far the best. I parked at the side of the road in woods next to a very damp and fairly untouched (though mowed every 5 years or so) powerline cut. I found a ton of sedges, lots of white meadowsweet (which I know is common by you, but I've only seen a few times in NJ), a red admiral butterfly who was very patient with me. Then what I thought was a totally new genus to me, hedgenettle (but it turns out I've seen it twice before), and water plantain (I was able to ID it as northern), and then kidney leaved mud plantain (I'm the only one who's ever posted it from NJ). There was also a Ludwigia , Virginia hedge hyssop, and Japanese mazus.
Next were swamp candles, tall meadow rue, and swamp rose with an enormously long and skinny longhorned flower beetle (I assume). Then there were grapes with phylloxera galls, amber snails, he-huckleberry, and pale spike lobelia, an ugly grasshopper nymph that held very still for me (maybe a pygmy?), and finally beautiful, pink field milkwort. What a day!
7-11-19 Route 206 Hillsborough, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 515 miles total.
Category: not here in the fall
I walked behind the doctor's office after my appointment today. I'd not walked here since November, so I was looking for summer plants and for insects. I found: lots of aphids, scarlet pimpernel, brown marmorated stinkbug, Photinus firefly, broad-nosed weevil, a wasp, a cricket (I think a tree cricket nymph, but not sure), dogbane leaf beetle, a whole lot of goldenrod leaf miners and galls, a sweat bee, a skipper, a picture winged fly, lots of japanese beetles, a bumble bee, a polished lady beetle, lots of unusual (maybe polished) a plant hopper nymph in waxy froth, grass with ergot fungus, goldenrod all contorted with rust, smooth tare in fruit, a delicate cycnia moth, a crab spider, a pear crescent, a coelid leafhopper, an ant, a flesh fly, a tarnished plant bug, a cabbage white, and butter-and-eggs.
Wow--switching from flute to bari sax? Flute is a really convenient instrument to carry. I guess bari sax can be, too. Since no one carries it anywhere. I was so happy when, as an adult, I switched from trumpet to oboe. So much more convenient. But my husband says adults shouldn't be allowed to take up oboes.
Your walks are full of so many exotic plants that I have never heard of. But Japanese beetles, yes, I've heard of them! And butter-and eggs.
7/10/19. Vermont State House, Montpelier, VT. 1.4 miles today, 1908.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, unintended plants, insects
This evening I took a walk through the State House gardens looking for weeds and insects. I have a chip on my shoulder about these gardens that makes me seek out weeds every time I visit. A few years back, a gardening group got permission to plant the State House gardens with edible plants, vegetables, berries, and the like. But after just a year or so, the edible plants were yanked out and replaced with hydrangeas. Yuck! I asked my friend who is curator of the State House why the change. He said that appearances of the gardens are extremely important and that he required the edible gardening folks to make the gardens absolutely symmetrical, so that if someone picked a pepper on one side, they had to pick a pepper on the other side to restore the symmetry. And absolutely no weeds would be tolerated on their watch. And then the gardeners lost interest. I bet they did, with the unrealistic, unreasonable demands placed on them. And the hydrangeas are weed free either. Today I found volunteer red oaks, sugar maples, box elders, and elms popping up. Also, Galinsoga, dandelions, goosefoot, bird's foot trefoil, pineapple weed, tear thumb, rabbit's foot clover, tumbleseed, alfalfa, and chicory. And many plants were full of Japanese beetles--in pairs!
Other insects I found in the gardens today were bumblebees and other bees, a skipper, a question mark, a paper wasp, a yellow jacket, lots of syrphid flies, and some big wasps (yellow jackets?) that swooped in and grabbed big syrphid flies on the wing.
I was delighted to find the Cyperus squarrosus still limping along between the cracks of the State House steps. I first spotted it there last year during the Montpelier Bioblitz. No sign of the cannabis that was reported in multiple locations around the State House lawn this week, though. The police are investigating...
7-12-19. Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 515.25 miles total
Categories: insects, garden weeds
I took a walk this evening around my yard, mostly looking for bugs. I found a number of Photinus fireflies, a lot of ants, some flies I didn't recognize, some candy-striped leafhoppers, some Jikradia leafhoppers (including a mating pair, a new species for my infamous collection), a cricket, bowl-shaped galls on a swamp white oak, some kind of mysterious linear brown things on the underside of the leaves of the same oak, and what might be a bark louse.
7-16-19. northeastern Monmouth County, NJ. 2 miles today, 517.25 miles total
Categories; weeds, shells, seashore plants
To celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary my husband and I took a leisurely trip together "down the shore". We stopped at several seaside parks. First was Union Beach, which had scrub and a lot of poison ivy and then a sandy beach. I saw a buckeye butterfly, sea rocket, cheat grass, and some small buttercup I've not managed to ID yet.
Next was Ideal Beach, with more Ailanthus than poison ivy and an old jetty on the beach. I saw mimosa, a monarch, willow oak, rough buttonweed and a miner in a bayberry leaf. I also found an oyster drill shell and most of what I think was a menhadden used as a bait fish by some fisherman then left to rot on the beach.
We stopped briefly at a construction site so Chuck could use the portajohn, but there was not much interesting here (other than the large earth moving equipment they were loading on a truck).
Then we went up Mount Mitchill, which is billed as the highest point on the Atlantic Seaboard. Here there was giant knotweed and spanish needles. It's nicely planted with a lot of native species, too.
We stopped for lunch, and spotted a duck out the window, and the first blooming queen anne's lace of the year, plus a tiny flatsedge I can't figure out. Then finally we went to the National Seashore beach to actually swim (this was Gunnison, the only official "clothing optional" beach in the NY area, which was quite the experience). On the way in I was taking photos of the plants (both staghorn and winged sumac, tupelo, bayberry, rabbitfoot clover, etc.) then realized that carrying a camera to this particular beach would probably not go over very well and managed to restrain myself.
7-20-19 Chrome Serpentine Barrens Preserve, Oxford, PA. 0.5 miles today, 517.75 miles total
categories: unusual plants, insects, galls
On my way to Maryland to pick Becca up from a visit to our aunt, I stopped at two serpentine barrens. This was the first. I'd never been here before and missed that you are supposed to cross the road for the "good stuff" but I got a meadow and woods this way, which were very much like the pine barrens in NJ but therefore very interesting to me, with lots of new species.
Highlights included: serpentine aster, pineweed, toothed white-topped aster, round leaved boneset, small sundrops, a yellow flax, rose pink, purple chokeberry, whorled milkwort, low st. John's wort.
insects: golden digger wasp, sand loving wasp, planthopper, flower longhorn, firefly, spittlebug, bush cricket, tiphid wasp, mason wasp, damselfly, buckeye butterflies, longlegged fly, tachinid fly, sweat bee, chinese mantis, thickheaded fly, red spotted purple butterfly, and a hanging theif.
Galls: spiny rose gall, spongy oak apple gall, an ironweed leaf gall, blueberry stem gall, and black cherry finger galls.
7-20-19 Nottingham County Park, Nottingham, PA. 0.5 miles today, 518.25 miles total
categories: unusual plants, insects
The second serpentine area I stopped in on the way to Maryland. This one I'd been to before. It was very hot so I didn't go far but still found some new plants.
Plants: lyre leaved rockcress, starry campion, small's ragwort, plains coreopsis, horsefly weed, whorled milkweed, and more small sundrops
Insects: more buckeye butterflies, a digger wasp, eastern carpenter bee, sculptured resin bee, pearl crescent, a muscoid fly, spotted cucumber beetle, wild indigo duskywing (I think; it was right next to the wild indigo plant), least skipper, eastern tiger swallowtail, five banded thynnid wasp, sweat bee.
7-29-19 Arlington, MA. 0.25 miles today, 518.5 miles total
Category: weeds
Becca and I are visiting my sister, Kate. I spotted an interesting plant on the off ramp from route 2, so this evening Kate and I walked her dog down to check it out (which the dog did not thing was a good idea at all and was very happy to head back home!)
The plant was indeed slender snakecotton, which I had only seen on the seashore in New York harbor before. They must salt the roads heavily here. Otherwise there were mostly familar weeds. I found a pearlwort and a smartweed, both of which are giving me trouble getting them to species.
In Kate's yard there are a ton of creeping bellflower, which we don't have at home, and a pilewort that was taller than she was!
In the parking lot of whole foods I found lots and lots of little black swallowwort seedlings, another plant I mostly only see in the Boston area.
7-30-19 Salem, MA. 0.25 miles today, 518.75 miles total
category: weeds
Becca and I visited Salem today. On the way in we stopped dead on I-95 and I looked out the window and noticed what I thought was branched plantain, which I've never seen in person before. But the traffic moved on before I could get out my camera, and the next time we stopped there was none. But the third time was the charm and we stopped long enough for me to get a few photos of what was indeed branched plantain. It's the only New England record of it on iNat. Very exciting.
In Salem itself it was again very hot. I walked around the block looking for plants but didn't go much farther. I found rabbits foot clover, which I don't often see, lesser swine cress, a pearlwort, a maple with unusual leaves, a little lobelia that was probably planted, and the highlight: blue toadflax, but tiny.
7-30-19 Crusher Lot, Arlington, MA. 0.5 miles today, 519.25 miles total
Category as many plants as possible
In the afternoon I explored this little wooded hillside in suburban Arlington. There was a nice variety of plants. My favorites were Canada mayflower and false solomon's seal in fruit, a mountain ash, ghost (Indian) pipe fruits, and what I think was smooth carrionflower.
7-31-19 Water tower, Arlington, MA. 0.5 miles today, 519.75 miles total
Category: weeds
In the morning I walked with my sister around the water tower, looking for the closest mailbox, of all things. We didn't find many weeds,though there was one abandoned yard. but I found the black swallowwort that's so common here and not at all in NJ.
7-31-19 Arlington Reservoir, Arlington, MA, 0.75 miles today, 520.5 miles total
categories: blooming, insects, unusual
In the late afternoon I walked alongside the reservoir, avoiding the for-a-fee swimming beach. I found lots of interesting plants here and was disappointed to have to turn around because of thunder, but I made it back to my car just before the heavens opened. still got soaked just getting from car to house, though.
My absolute favorite was my first ever water clover fern. I'd only read about them before. So exciting! There were a lot of insects and leaf mines and so many wildflowers, many probably planted but at least native. I'd love to go back sometime when it's not about to pour.
7/11/19. Chickering Bog. 1.9 miles, 1910.6 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, flowers
This morning I gave a guided tour of Chickering Bog to a friend and 2 of her friends. My friend had contacted me because she had heard about the orchids but had never visited the bog and she knew that I knew the bog well. It was great fun showing the 3 of them the trail, and then pointing out and identifying the orchids, as well as other flowers that we found along the way. I also shot quite a few insects. Orchids today were helleborine, ladies’ tresses, rose pogonia with bumblebee, and grass pink. Other blooms were one flowered pyrola, many flowered pyrola, winterberry, mountain wood sorrel, and partridgeberry. And other plants that I found were queen of the prairie, wall lettuce, Scirpus atrocinctus, other sedges, marsh goldenrod, bog rosemary, dwarf raspberry. Arthropods were bumblebees (tricolored), other bees, syrphid flies, a monarch, blue butterfly, skipper, burdock leaf miner, red and white calligrapher beetle, 2 soldier beetles, dog tick, elfin skimmer, a pair of sprites, a whiteface, a widow skimmer, and a black and red fly.
7/12/19. Plainfield. 1.9 miles, 1912.5 miles total.
Categories: insects, birds, trees, blooming, ferns, mosses, sedges
Today I explored parts of downtown Plainfield. I parked at the Plainfield Health Center and walked the margins of their parking lot, where I found their basswood trees in full bloom and covered with pollinators. From there I walked down to the Friends Meeting House, a former residential house on the very edge of town near the river, with trails down to the river. I explored the trails and their lovely overgrown gardens. Then I returned to town and walked the margins of the library yard and up the sidewalk on Main Street, which is the busy Route 2 highway. Arthropods today included: honeybees, bumblebees (tricolored), other bees, Japanese beetles, Asiatic beetle, odd round beetle, lightning bug, ground beetle, tortoise shell, a bean beetle (?), syrphid flies (pair), a grasshopper being eaten by spider, a paper wasp, a fly with brown fur, a green inchworm, a transparent nymph, a leaf hopper, red admiral (dead), wood nymph, American idia moth, Noctuid moth, geometer moth, harvestmen, basswood leaf gall, cherry leaf gall, Sarsaparilla leaf miner, and box elder leaf galls. Birds were robin, turkey vulture, phoebe, cedar waxwing, and northern cardinal.
And plants, there were many. Sweet nightshade, Allegheny monkeyflower, forget me not, milkweed, other milkweed, stinking chamomile, and black medick were in bloom, while Joe Pye was budding. I also found white pine, ash-leaved maple, elm, quaking aspen, red oak (mother), white ash, mountain maple, hemlock, yellow birch, beech, striped maple, white willow, black cherry, staghorn sumac, buckthorn, sugar maple, red pine, cottonwood, sensitive fern, Christmas fern, horsetails, oak fern, interrupted fern, Pleurozeum schreberi, Thuidium delicatulum, Polytrichum juniperinum, Japanese knotweed, Scirpus atrocinctus, Carex intumescens, Bulboschenus, puslane, Centuarea, pineapple weed, dandelion, greater celandine, and wild chervil.
I loved reading your journal entries about summer in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Gotta have faith that warm weather will return with all of its lovely blooms! Celebrating your 25th wedding anniversary by going to a clothing optional beach? Yes, that’s quite memorable, made even more so by taking your camera. It was really cool to read about the serpentine barrens. I’ve heard of pine barrens, but never visited. Serpentine barrens is entirely new to me. I’ve also never heard of slender snakecotton, branched plantain, or water clover fern. You’ve got very sharp eyes!
7/13/19. Randolph. 1 mile today, 1913.5 miles total.
Categories: wood plants, blooms, arthropods
This afternoon I stopped in Randolph for a brief walk while on my drive to New Hampshire. I parked at the Vermont Technical College campus and walked from there to a residential neighborhood with dirt roads near the campus. I found dandelion, greater celandine, Canada thistle, moneywort, wild chervil, jewel weed, black raspberries, helleborine, sweet nightshade, wild cucumber, Centaurea, sand spurge, pineapple plant, and cudweed in bloom. Woody plants were a maple (dead), buckthorn, buckeye (planted), white birch, basswood (in bloom), Japanese barberry, Vinca minor, white ash, Japanese knotweed, and sugar maple. I also found some ragweed growing in the crotch of a tree. Arthropods were a tachnid fly, some syrphid flies, a green bottle fly, a Japanese beetle (dead), and a bumblebee.
7/14/19. Alexander Rd, Dunbarton, NH. 0.8 miles today, 1914.3 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, blooming
This morning I took a stroll along Alexander Rd looking for bugs. I found a black thread-waisted wasp, a brown spider, a yellow spider, a brown and gray spider, a shiny black ground beetle, a lightning bug, an Asiatic beetle, acommon wood nymph, a harlequin webworm, a plume moth, some harvestmen, some syrphid flies, a horsefly, grape galls, oak leaf galls, aphids on bittersweet, bumblebees, some other bees, and a clump of fuzzy black and white caterpillars on a basswood leaf. Blooming today were some roses, whorled loosestrife, and wild sarsaparilla.
7/15/19. Eaton Cemetery Rd, Marshfield. 2.8 miles today, 1917.1 miles total.
Categories: birds, arthropods, blooming, woody plants
This afternoon I took a walk up Eaton Cemetery Rd in Marshfield. This road winds along open farm fields and short patches of woods. Woody plants were alder, balsam fir, red spruce, cottonwood, black cherry, Salix bebbiana, red maple, trembling aspen, Morrow’s honeysuckle, balsam poplar, sugar maple, white pine, rose, crabapple, red elder, staghorn sumac, elm, snowberry, butternut, beech, daphne, white cedar, box elder, heart-leaved willow, Vinca minor, honey locust, white ash, buckthorn, burning bush, hazelnut, apple, grey birch, butternut, common barberry, basswood, hop hornbeam, spotted hawthorn, serviceberry, highbush cranberry. Other plants were evening primroses, Allegheny monkeyflower, saint johnswort, sweet yellow clover, black knapweed, bell flower, early goldenrod (budded), wild chervil, Valerian, blue vervain, bishop’s weed, Japanese knotweed, whorled loosestrife, moneywort, swamp candles, blue geranium, horseradish, and jewel weed. I found a few sedges that I recognized, including Scirpus atrocinctus, Carex crinita, and Scirpus hattorianus. Ferns were sensitive fern, interrupted fern, and ostrich fern. I had a great time looking for pollinators and other insects. I found milkweed beetle, Japanese beetle, flower beetle, fire fly, bumblebees (tricolored, terricola), other bees, thread-waisted wasp, syrphid flies, golden fly, cabbage white, skipper, wood nymph, blue butterfly, Virginia ctenucha, burdock tree hopper, blue leaf hopper with red eyes, yellow crab spider, harvestmen, brown crab spider eating bee, alder gall, poplar leaf gall, butternut leaf gall, basswood leaf gall. I also found quite a few birds, including goldfinch, brown thrasher, broad-winged hawk, red-winged blackbird, chipping sparrow, some killdeer on the edge of a field, and ruby throated hummingbird.
7/16/19. Sodom Pond. 0.4 miles today, 1917.5 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, birds
This morning my husband got out the canoe for a float around Sodom Pond. I wasn’t up to paddling, so we mostly drifted with the current and wind, and I shot a lot dragonflies. I got some bluets, a chalk-fronted corporal, some spreadwings, a violet dancer, a common green darner, a dot-tailed whiteface, an eastern forktail, and a widow skimmer. I also shot some brown beetles, some water beetles, some moths, some flies, a bumblebee, a leech, and a crayfish. Plus water shield, white water lily, a song sparrow, and a loon.
7/17/29. Chickering Bog, Calais, VT. 1.6 miles today, 1919.1 miles total.
Categories: herps, fungi
This morning I headed out to Chickering Bog, despite some dreary rainy weather. It was a great day for herps—I found several red efts on the trail, a large bullfrog and a green frog in the bog, and a spring peeper on a leaf by the bog. I also found a dead frog in the road near the parking area. Fungi today were an orange gilled mushroom, a white gilled mushroom, and a Russula.
7/18/19. Montpelier, VT. 0.3 miles today, 1919.4 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, invasives
This morning I met up with my 2 friends for our weekly bugwalk. We did a loop around a residential neighborhood, including the margins of the parking lot of the local nursing home. We had great luck finding pollinators in people’s flower gardens by the sidewalks, especially in the echinacea. We found Japanese beetles (copulating), firefly, American rose chafer, Asian lady beetle, honeybee, ligated furrow bee, bicolored striped sweat bee, common eastern bumblebee, common aerial yellowjacket, 2-striped grasshopper, white-cheeked jumping spider, European harvestman, a spider eating an Asian ladybug, margined calligrapher, thick-legged hover fly, transverse-banded flower fly, long-legged fly, broad-headed bug, squash vine borer moth, and black cherry leaf gall. We also found garlic mustard, helleborine, and Japanese barberry.
7/19/19. Groton State Park, Groton, VT. 2.2 miles today, 1921.6 miles total.
Categories: native plants, arthropods
This afternoon my husband and I drove up to Groton with our canoe. Before heading out onto Ricker Pond, I walked a stretch of the railroad trail through the woods while my husband rode his unicycle along the trail. Then we took a leisurely float past the shore of Ricker State Park campground. While walking in the woods I found shinleaf, spikenard, white baneberry, wild sarsaparilla, red baneberry, and bluebead lily. I’m always looking out for places with both white and red baneberry since it’s not that hard to find hybrids if you look closely. Once out on the water in our canoe, I found serviceberries, striped maple, mountain holly, 3-way sedge, Canada yew, white meadowsweet, and loads of great rhododendron, which permeates the shoreline of the campground. Arthropods today were a mayfly, harvestmen, a scorpionfly, a round-necked longhorn beetle, and a bumblebee.
7/20/19. Loudon, New Hampshire. 0.1 miles today, 1921.7 miles total.
Categories: wings
Today was quite, quite warm, but my mother's second cousin (and former neighbor when she was a child), was having an open house at her day lily farm up in Loudon. So drove up to see the day lilies and visit. We were in luck--it was a family reunion of sorts, with 2 cousings and one of their daughters, the one I used to play with when we were visiting our grandparents, who were next-door neighbors on Alexander Rd in Dunbarton. In between visiting, I shot a turkey vulture and a 2-spotted bumblebee..
7/22/19. Montpelier, VT. 0.8 miles today, 1922.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, arthropods, blooms
This evening I took a short walk through downtown Montpelier after dinner. I walked through the heart of the Meadow, a dense residential neighborhood that used to be a farm, long, long ago. I found ragweed, pineapple weed, purple crownvetch, and helleborine in bloom. I also found a common eastern bumblebee and a tarnished plant bug. Birds today were a mourning dove and a house sparrow.
7/23/19. Joe’s Pond, VT. 6.3 miles today, 1928.8 miles total.
Categories: arthropods, birds, blooms
This morning my husband and I headed out to the rail trail along Joe’s Pond. First I went for a walk on the trail heading along the northern edge of the pond while my husband rode his unicycle. After a rest and a snack, I got my bike out and we continued along a short ways heading east on the trail from Joe’s Pond General Store. While walking, I found a monarch, goldenrod stem gall, alder tongue gall, yellow-banded bumblebee, common eastern bumblebee, perplexing bumblebee, western honeybee, Japanese beetle, black-shouldered spinyleg dragonfly, eastern calligrapher, and margined calligrapher. Birds were chipping sparrow, tree swallow, eastern kingbird, gray catbird, and blue-headed vireo. Blooming today were alfalfa, shinleaf, creeping bellflower, purple crownvetch, and early goldenrod. And along the trail, after spotting both red baneberry, and white baneberry, I found a hybrid baneberry (white berries on thin pedicels).
7/24/19. John Fowler Rd, Plainfield, VT. 3.4 miles today, 1932.2 miles total.
Categories: woody plants, ferns, insects
This afternoon I explored a road I haven’t walked before, John Fowler Rd in Plainfield. Actually, I have watched the very top portion of the road before, but today I started at the bottom and climbed all the way to the top, a long steady climb—and I felt fine. Great to be walking again! I found white ash, paper birch, sugar maple, mountain maple, striped maple, fir, staghorn sumac, tamarack, trembling aspen, beech, red maple, butternut, American mountain ash, American elm, white cedar, white pine, red spruce, yellow birch, black cherry, box elder, hop hornbeam, heart-leaved willow, balsam poplar, beaked and hazelnut for woody plants. Blooming were wild parsnip, helleborine, wall lettuce. I also found red baneberry, white baneberry, and the hybrid with white berries on thin pedicels. Ferns today were beech fern, interrupted fern, sensitive fern, marginal wood fern, Christmas fern, maidenhair fern, ostrich fern, bracken fern, oak fern, and Equisetum hymale. Insects were oblique-banded pond fly, deer fly, honeybee, Japanese beetle, dun skipper, monarch, and an ichneumon wasp.
7/25/19. Montpelier, VT. 1 mile today. 1933.2 miles total.
Categories: insects, blooming
This morning I met up with my 3 bug friends in Montpelier and we walked together to the garden of a mutual friend for a bug tour around her house. We had great luck finding insects in her vegetable garden, and also in the wetlands that she is cultivating on her tiny ¼ acre lot. She has a very small natural pool that contains frogs as well as many wetland plants. After our garden tour, I continued on alone to Vermont College for a picnic lunch in the woods. During and after lunch, I circled the grounds hunting for more insects. It was a great pollinator day, so we found quite a few insects. We found two-spotted bumblebee, perplexing bumblebee, tricolored bumblebee, western honeybee, potter wasp, ligated furrow bee, lasioglossum, green sweat bees, weevil wasp, Gorytina, sawflies, Philanthus politus, confusing furrow bee, European paper wasp, and an ichneumonid wasp. Lepidoptera were striped hairstreak, topiary grass-veneer, and Virginian tiger moth. Hemiptera were coppery leafhopper, striped leafhopper, plant bugs, and Euschistus. Beetles were Japanese beetle, Oriental beetle, lily leaf beetle, flea beetle, click beetles, banded longhorn beetle, and ground beetles. We found a lovely black-tipped darner who posed on the garden fence for quite a while. We also found an eastern forktail. Flies were common drone fly, eastern calligrapher, and margined calligrapher. Orthoptera were two-striped grasshopper, pygmy grasshopper, and ground cricket. Blooming today were Himalayan balsam, purslane, pineapple weed, mint, marsh cinquefoil, marsh cudweed, swamp candles, greater celandine, ragweed, alsike clover, lesser burdock, greater burdock, and sweet William catchfly.
7/26/19. Groton State Park, Groton, VT. 1.6 miles today, 1934.8 miles total.
Categories: insects, fruits
This afternoon my husband and I went up to Groton so he could ride a bit of the railtrail on his unicycle. I walked the same section (but not as far) looking for insects. I found a monarch caterpillar and a cutworm larva, an ebony jewelwing, a Diotria hyalipennis robber fly, some leafhoppers, a Euschistus bug, a red milkweed beetle, and a northern pearlyeye butterfly. Fruits today were red baneberry, beaked hazelnut, and twisted stalk. I also found some early goldenrod in bloom.
7/27/19. Clough State Park, Dunbarton, NH. 0.2 miles today, 1935 miles total.
This afternoon I went down to Clough State Park with my mother, sister, and her 3 kids. I swam with them for a bit. Then I took my camera down to the marshy wetspot at the end of the beach for some dragon hunting. The dragons were magnificent. I found eastern amberwing, Halloween pennant, Calico pennant slaty skimmer, and widow skimmer. I also found four-banded stink bug hunter wasp, dark paper wasp, humped beewolf, honeybee, and common eastern bumblebee, plus Japanese beetle, red milkweed beetle, Oriental beetle, short-winged green grasshopper, and a goldenrod crab spider. Blooming today along the beach were buttonbush, marsh St. John’s wort, common pipewort, pickerelweed, and flat-topped goldenrod.
In the evening, I did some mothing under the porch light of the Bordello. That’s the name of the small cabin that I sleep in behind my mother’s house. When they were first furnishing the cabin, they picked up an antique lamp with a red silk shade that hangs in the cabin window. Since the lamp produced red light, the cabin was christened the Bordello. Under the Bordello light tonight I found dagger moth, hayworm, common gluphisia, pug moth, and banded tussock moth. Also, a caddisfly, mayfly, scarab beetle, click beetle, and a cranefly.
7/28/19 Stinson Rd, Dunbarton, NH and Audubon Society, Concord, NH. 4 miles today, 1939 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, blooms, roadkill
I started the day with a walk up the hill in search of birds. I headed up Stinson Rd, which is a “new” to us development. I think it was started in the early 1980s. We still say “tsk, tsk” when we drive by because we remember the thick forest that used to be there. After breakfast, I took my mother up to the Audubon Society trails outside of Concord for a slow meander to Turkey Pond and back. Birds today were gray catbird, chipping sparrow, eastern bluebird, black-capped chickadee, purple finch, American robin, eastern phoebe, wild turkey, and yellow-bellied sapsucker. Insects included oriental beetle, Asian ladybug, leaf beetles, several blue dashers, an omnivorous leafroller moth, a milkweed tussock moth caterpillar, a fall webworm caterpillar, a Carolina grasshopper, a katydid and a leafhopper. Blooming today were purple loosestrife, arrowgrass, blue toadflax, bush honeysuckle, early goldenrod, cudweed, skullcaps, helleborine, ghost pipes, checkerberry, and pokeweed. Fruiting were aronia and blueberry. We were pleased to find some wild American chestnut sprouts in the Audubon woods. I found plenty of roadkill today on the Stinson Rd walk, including frogs, newt, American toads, rosy maple moth caterpillar, and a painted turtle.
7/29/19 Montpelier, VT. 1.5 miles today, 1940.5 miles total.
Categories: blooming, birds, insects
This evening I took a brisk walk around a residential neighborhood of Montpelier just before dusk. Blooming today were creeping bellflower, pineapple weed, white sweetclover, cudweed, butter and eggs, flat-topped , goldenrod, and white campion. Birds were American robin, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, song sparrow, blue jay. I also found a pile of feathers that used to belong to a mourning dove. Insects were crambus moth, apple leaf skeletonizer, greenbottle fly, eastern calligrapher, fungus gnat, --Oriental beetle, two-spotted bumblebee, common eastern bumblebee, honeybee and a dead cicada.
7/30/19. Champlain causeway, Colchester, VT. 5 miles today, 1945.5 miles total.
Categories: insects, blooming, fruiting, trees
Today my husband and I went up to Colchester to ride the Champlain causeway, the bike trail that follows an old railroad bed far across Lake Champlain. He was on his unicycle and I was on my electric scooter since I’m never sure when my energy is going to give out. The trail was in rough shape and parts were under construction. Just as we were reaching the end of the trail before the ferry to the islands, a thunderstorm rolled in. We turned back, but the storm quickly cleared, thank goodness. No place for shelter on the causeway! We scrambled down the bank for a picnic by the water. I found bluets, lots of common eastern bumblebees, honeybee, caddisfly, oleander aphid, fall webworm caterpillars in their nests, Asian ladybug, and a wolf spider. Birds today were double crested cormorant, common merganser,song sparrow, Caspian tern, great egret, Canada goose, wood duck, and mourning dove. Blooming were black knapweed, yellow sweetclover, viper’s bugloss, early goldenrod, butter and eggs, purple loosestrife dwarf snapdragon, crownvetch, and water plantain. Fruiting were buckthorn, chokecherry, grape, poison ivy. Trees along the causeway were cottonwood, white ash, silver maple. And road kill was a single American toad.
I love the Bordello! and how I miss just walking with friends and family, no worry about mask and distancing (and government rules). So pleasant to read about flowers and pollinators as well.
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