June, 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.
Comentarios
June 6, 2019. Watchung Reservation, Watchung, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 508.5 miles total
Categories: insects, viburnums, ferns
I had a doctor's appointment over this way and wanted a nice, quiet walk in the woods afterward. My camera battery was dying, so I walked in until it died and then walked back out. I was looking mainly for insects as I've done most of the plants here before, but I did make a point of getting the linden viburnums and blackhaws, and I'm still working on learning ferns.
Bug wise, I found a really neat looking wasp-mimic crane fly (I think), and lots of mating beetles, including a set of fireflies. there was what I think is a lizard beetle, and lots of ants and flies.
June 6, 2019. Hicks Tract, Millington, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 509 miles total
Category: eye level.
I've been advised to be more aware of my posture when I walk. And I usually walk bent over, looking at the ground for interesting plants and insects. Tonight I drove my daughter's friend home, then just before sunset took a quick walk in some woods by her house. So this time I tried to mostly focus on the plants and bugs to be found at around eye level. As a result I found tulip scale with ants tending them that I would never have noticed otherwise. I also, however, managed to step in dog do, that I would likely have avoided if I'd been more carefully watching where I put my feet!
I found a number of spiders and some interesting flies, plus some pretty (and tiny) beetles. there were leaf miners, and the first privet flowers of the year. a bunch of aphids tended by ants on bigtoothed aspen, and meadow buttercup (which was obviously not up at eye height). I hurried toward the end of the walk, as I was doing a loop and it was starting to get rather dark, and the only light I had with me was my phone. But I made it out in time.
June 8, 2019. Passaic River Park, Summit, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 509.75 miles total.
Category: identifiable
I went to watch a friend's dance recital in the town where I grew up, and then stopped at this new-to-me section of a park on a bluff between the train tracks and the river. It's also along the only remaining stretch of dirt road in Summit. Interesting stuff I found included indian pipes, a hazel, ants tending aphids on both dewberry and arrowwood, lots and lots of sedges, and swamp candles.
Sounds like your insect hunting has been very fruitful! I'm going to look up lizard flies, because the name is too good to be true. That's an interesting idea about posture and the need to look up more. I guess doing that will put you face to face with more galls and spiders. That can be fun, too. Meanwhile, I'm having quite a few adventures in the far northern reaches of Vermont. The challenge for me is finding time to get to the computer. Maybe in July I'll have a chance to catch up a little with my backlog and journal.
June 15, 2019. Island Beach State Park, Seaside Park, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 510.25 miles total.
Categories: shells, seaside plants
The family went to the beach for Father's Day and collected shells, and I walked around the bath house checking out plants. Shells included surf clam, hard clam, jackknife clam, oyster, jingle, false angel wing, mussel, and slipper shell. plus hermit crab, lady crab, spider crab, sand crab, and blue crab. Also barnacles and a skate egg case.
Plants included yucca, creeper, beach pea, bayberry, spotted knapweed, poison ivy, evening primrose, searocket, and a few more common weeds.
June 16, 2019. St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Bridgewater NJ. 0.25 miles today. 510.5 miles total
Category: weeds
We had a picnic at church and I walked around the parking lot toward the end of it, looking at the weedy edges. I found a buffalo treehopper and some pennycress that I'd not seen before, and I realized their (planted) catalpa trees are southern not the usual northern, which was neat (and smelly).
I didn't walk anywhere on the 20th, but we had both a bunny and a family of 5 foxes in our yard today, both of which are quite unusual.
June 22, 2019, Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, South Orange, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 510.75 miles total
category: weeds
My sister-in-law made her (adult) bat mitzvah today and after the service I walked the edge of the parking lot looking at weeds. There was a nifty black and white katydid nymph and some probable dog vomit slime mold, but everything else was pretty standard.
June 23, 2019. South Mountain Reservation, Maplewood, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 511.5 miles total
category: as many species as possible.
This reservation about 30 minutes from me had a bioblitz today. I couldn't really take part, but I had 45 minutes available in the early morning, so I stopped in three places for just 15 minutes each to see what I could find to add to their lists. There were a lot of leafminers and galls, and both the snipe flies and black fireflies were out in force. I saw my first grape leaffolder moth, which was very pretty. The most interesting plant was some crested elsholtzia. It's the 5th time I've found it in NJ, but only the 7th observation in the state. Either very uncommon or very overlooked.
June 26, 2019. Raritan River, Somerville, NJ. 1 mile today, 512.5 miles total
Categories: weeds, insects
My husband had his 50-year-old celebratory colonoscopy today and I went for a walk during the proceedure. The surgicenter was right near the river, so I walked that and a powerline cut.
I found giant knotweed, cow parsnip, a red tailed (I think ) hawk, some rabbit's foot clover (it's unusual here, if weedy everywhere else). I had to wade through the brush around a fallen tree, and the brush included some Japanese hops, and here I was, once again, in shorts, so I got a little scraped.
At the door to the center there was a Russian olive. We see so much autumn olive here, but hardly ever Russian, so that was neat, even if planted.
on June 27 I visited my brother in law and his family who were here from Portland, Oregon and staying in Asbury Park on the Jersey shore. We spent the day at the beach and I took hundreds of photos, with my oldest camera (not wanting to damage it in the sand) without realizing I'd forgotten to put in an SD card! I took a few at dinner of weeds in the parking lot with my good camera, and those came out, but that's it. Very frustrating.
Sounds like a great month of adventures, from dog vomit slime mold on up! Too bad about the missing photos. If only that camera would beep or something when it can't save...the bunny and the 5 foxes were quite a find!
Many adventures for me this month. I'm hoping to find time to start documenting them, finally.
June 30, Sunset Park, Asbury Park, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 513 miles total
Category: weeds
I walked the long way to my car while visiting relatives down here and stopped by a bit of a lake. Not much interesting, but some buttonbush with a bumblebee, a dragonfly, and three trees in a row trying to look just the same: a sweetgum, a silver maple, and a white mulberry all with narrow, palmate lobes and coarsely toothed edges.
6/1/19. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 2.4 miles today, 1872.9 miles total.
Categories: sedges, insects, birds
I spent the day today at the Nature Center attending the first day of a weekend workshop on upland sedges taught by Jerry Jenkins and Brett Engstrom. We spent the morning in the classroom getting to know a few sedges up close and personal, drawing them, describing them, touching them. After lunch, we went for a walk up into the woods to look at sedges. We found dozens to look at, but I haven't had time to identify any of them yet. In addition to sedges, I also found beetles (Collops, Plateumaris, Capraita, Dichelonyx, Altica--copulating, winter firefly, Calligrapha philadelphica, Calligrapha rowena), micromoths, an indigo duskywing, some flies (Bacchini, Muscidae, craneflies--mating), a spider wasp, an Andrena bee, a stinkbug, and a Roessel's grasshopper. Also a dead shrew, some geese, and a red-winged blackbird.
6/2/20. North Branch Nature Center, 0.9 miles today, 1873.8 miles total.
Categories: sedges, insects
This morning I returned to the Nature Center for the second day of the sedges workshop. We started with a brief review in the classroom of what we had learned yesterday. Then we went up into the hills to search for sedges. I soon began to find the climb a little difficult, then arduous, although we hadn't really gone very far. I sat down on a log to rest, and then sat some more. As excited as I was about the course, I just couldn't summon the energy to follow along. I turned back down the hill alone and willed myself to put one foot in front of the other and get down the hill without help. Soon some of my classmates came up behind me, then passed me because I was walking so slowly. And the teachers passed me. And everyone passed me. Still I trudged on downhill. It took me 45 minutes to walk the 1/4 mile downhill to the Nature Center. When I got back, everyone else was well into eating lunch. I had to lie down in a back room for a while because I could barely summon the energy to breathe. Finally I felt well enough to go into the classroom. I splayed out on an adirondack chair trying to listen intently to the instructors. But I had no energy to sit, even though every part of my body was fully supported by the chair. What had I done wrong to get in this condition? No clue. When the instruction was over and they asked us to clean the room, I quietly slipped out and drove home.
But during the walk, I did manage to see a few things, including lots of sedges, plus starflower and striped maple in bloom, a spider, a cucumber beetle, some leafhoppers (Graphocelphala gothica, Cuerna striata),a millipede, and a black-capped chickadee.
6/5/20. Scragg Mountain, VT. 0.8 miles today, 1874.6 miles total.
Categories: plants, insects
After laying in bed for a couple of days recovering from whatever got me down on Sunday, I finally felt up for a walk again today. I drove out to Scragg Mountain near Warren and Waitsfield since there was a paucity of iNaturalist observations there. I did a short walk, keeping in mind all the time that I was alone and I never knew when my ailment was going to lay me low. I avoided climbing any hills but tried to follow the contours. I found a loop path that was relatively flat, for a mountain. I met several other hikers along the way, so I wasn't entirely alone. And of course, there was lots to see without going far. I find red pine, beech, red oak, striped maple, hemlock, yellow birch, fir, white pine, spotted hawthorn,gray birch, sugar maple, quaking aspen, big-toothed aspen, chokecherry, and white ash. Blooming were white baneberry, wild cucumber, false Solomon's seal, Canada mayflower, spikenard, hobblebush, foamflower, bluebead lily, partridgeberry, painted trillium, blackberry, yarrow, red clover, common barberry, and red elder. The ferns were quite varied, with lady fern, sensitive fern, rattlesnake fern, oak fern, intermediate woodfern, marsh fern, bracken fern, hayscent fern, beechfern, cinnamon fern, interrupted fern, Prince's pine, tree clubmoss, staghorn clubmoss, and shining clubmoss. I also found some Dicranum, Thuidium, Hypnum, and Polystichum mosses. Insects were a sawfly, several beetles (Necrophila americana, Capraita, Ophraella), a bug (Lygus lineolaris), a silvery blue butterfly. I also found a slug, a snail, a sapsucker, a blue jay, and a least half a dozen red efts.
6/6/20. Montpelier, VT and Downer State Forest, Sharon, VT. 1.7 miles today, 1876.3 miles total.
Categories: insects, invasives, trees, ferns, flowering
This morning I met up with 2 friends for a short bugwalk in downtown Montpelier. Today we walked a few blocks on the west side of the Statehouse. I had intended to show them the secret garden behind the Statehouse cafeteria, but we found so many bugs along the way that we never got that far. We found bees and wasps (confusing bumblebee, nomad bee, mining bee, , dark paper wasp), a margined flowerfly, some bugs (box elder bug, Zelus luridus, Penthimia americana, Membracidae--copulating) some beetles (brown leaf weevil, winter firefly, ground beetle), a forest tent caterpillar, our first monarch of the year, some spiders (jumping spider, wolf spider), and some galls (box elder leaf galls, sugar maple leaf gall, elm leaf gall). Also, a hairy woodpecker, a grackle, a slug, and a crazy snakeworm (which seem to be quite common in downtown Montpelier). I also noted some Japanese maple, burning bush, honeysuckle, Japanese barberry, and honeylocust.
After the walk, I continued on in my car for an overnight in New Hampshire. On the way, I stopped at Downer State Forest in Sharon, VT. I remember walking some lovely trails here a few years back, but the forest has several quite separate portions, and my GPS didn't take me to the place I wanted. Still, I found myself on a quiet dirt road just above a small dam, so I made a short walk along the road. I found sugar maple, striped maple, basswood, red spruce, alternate-leaved dogwood, and white pine. Also, dandelion, golden Alexanders, Russian olive, false Solomon's seal, foamflower, red baneberry, and bluebead lily in bloom. And some ferns (sensitive fern, Christmas fern, interrupted fern, beech fern) and mosses (Orthotrichum, Pleurozeum schreberi). I also found wild chervil, bishop's weed, honeysuckle. Insects along the way were bees (Osmia, northern amber bumblebee, nomad bee), beetles (click, Dytiscidae), and dragonflies (eastern forktail, spring darner).
6/7/20. Alexander Rd, Dunbarton, NH. 1 miles today, 1877.3 miles total.
Categories: blooming, insects
This morning I went for a stroll up and down Alexander Rd in Dunbarton looking for blooms, birds, and insects. I find garlic mustard, lily of the valley, black cherry, Oriental bittersweet, poison ivy, greater celandine, dogwood, buckthorn, and burning bush all bloom, and a turkey vulture overhead. For insects (and greater arthropods), I found a dog tick, bee, Zelus luridus, and a damselfly. I also found some elm leaf galls and basswood leaf galls.
6/8/19. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 0.5 miles today, 1877.8 miles total.
Categories: bryophytes, blooms, insects
This morning I returned to the Nature Center for a weekend workshop on bryophytes taught by Mark Rahill. After viewing some of Mark's excellent photos in the morning, we went out for some field explorations, first around the property, then up to a rocky cliff near Wrightsville Reservoir, then to the cedar swamp in the Calais Town Forest. So as to avoid a repeat of last week's experience being left behind on the hill, I brought along some walkie talkies and asked Mark to carry one for safety. I also let him know that there was a chance I would have to abandon the trip without warning. One other woman on the trip had some underlying health issues, so we buddied up. I was having a grand time on this trip, and seemed to be doing OK, but then my buddy took me aside and said my face was going pale. So we left the cedar swamp together and sat on a log beside the trail, waiting for the group to finish up with the field lesson. They took quite a while coming back, which I kind of suspected would happen, because it is extremely difficult to navigate the Calais Town Forest without getting lost. I knew the forest better than anyone else in the group, but some help I was, sitting on a log beside the main trail back. In any case, the group finally found their way out and we returned together to the Nature Center with our finds.
Bryophytes for the date were Tetraphis pellucida, Dicranum flagellare, Orthotrichum, Pylasia selwynii, sphagnum,Trichocolea tomentella, Neckera pennata, Radula complanata, and Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus, plus others that I haven't identified yet. I also found at least a half dozen sedges. And a Canadian swallowtail, a cranefly (Pedicia contermina), some cherry leaf galls, a tri-colored bumblebee, a Virginia ctenucha caterpillar, and a beetle (Carabus nemoralis). Blooming today were germander speedwell, marsh marigold and bunchberry.
--toad, blue jay feather
6/9/19. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 0.7 miles today, 1878.5 miles total.
Categories: bryophytes, insects
This morning I returned to the Nature Center for the second day of our moss workshop. After a classroom lecture with pictures, we headed across the street to the town stump dump where I recalled finding some interesting mosses during last summer's Montpelier Bioblitz. To save steps, my buddy and I drove most of the way and we were both able to stay with the group for the entire session. We found Bartramia pomiformis, Funaria hygrometrica, and Physcomitrium pyriforme. I also found a Vanessa atalanta butterfly and a pygmy grasshopper.
6/10/19. Bliss Pond, Calais, VT. 0.2 miles today, 1878.7 miles total.
Categories: sedges, trees, insects
I was feeling a bit slow today, so instead of hiking, I drove to Bliss Pond with a picnic lunch to eat along the shore. As I ate, I watched June darners mating along the water. I also found an eastern forktail. From my seat on a rock, I could spot white pine, red spruce, sugar maple, pin cherry, dogwood, Polytrichum juniperinum, and sensitive fern, plus several kinds of sedges. Down by the water I found some Canada geese and ramshorn snails.
6/11/19. Molly's Falls State Park, Marshfield, VT and Brighton State Park, Island Pond, VT. 1.7 miles today, 1880.4 miles total.
Categories: trees, blooms, insects, ferns, birds
Today I drove up to Island Pond to camp for a couple of nights at Brighton State Park. I stopped along the way at Marshfield Reservoir for a pit stop and discovered that the parking lot beside the pond is now designated Molly's Falls State Park, so I took a quick walk in the woods to explore the pondside trail. I found dandelion, dogwood, forget-me-nots, wild strawberry, golden Alexanders, Canada mayflower, burning bush, spring cress, false Solomon's seal, star flower all in bloom, also sensitive fern, intermediate fern, and lady fern, plus beech, fir, hazelnut, honeysuckle, and red maple. And some Bryum argenteum, Porella platyphylloidea, and Hypnum. The grass between the parking lot and the water was full of Sialis flies, and I also found a some beetles (Phyllobius oblongus, Cephaloon).
It threatened to rain when I got to the park so I decided to get a lean-to instead of a tent site. After I set up my pop-up mosquito net inside the lean-to, I went for a walk around the other camp sites near mine (all empty except for the volunteer host), then hiked the nature trail, a short loop around a very wet vernal pool. I found starflower, bluets, Canada mayflower, lowbush blueberry, wild strawberry, winterberry, painted trillium, blue bead lily, lady's slippers, violets, wild cucumber, pin cherry, Aronia, Labrador tea, and dwarf raspberry in bloom. For ferns there were bracken fern, intermediate woodfern, interrupted fern, appressed tree clubmoss, spiny clubmoss, staghorn clubmoss, and Princess pine. Woody plants included chokecherry, red maple, red spruce, fir, quaking aspen, mountain ash, larch, red pine, white pine, big-toothed aspen, fly honeysuckle, paper birch, striped maple, mountain maple, white cedar, and Juneberry. Bryophytes were Frullania, Ulota crispulla, Plagiomnium ciliare, Rhizomnium, Sphagnum warnstorfii, Ptilium crista-castrensis, Climacium, Hypnum, Pleurozeum schreberi, Dicranum, Thuidium delicatulum, Bazzania trilobata, Sphagnum squarrosum, Atrichum, Polytrichum juniperinum, Polytrichum commune, and Hylocomium splendens. I found some cherry leaf galls, a clubtail dragonfly, some bees (bumblebee, Andrena vicina bee), a mayfly, a butterfly, and some deerflies. I also spent quite a while watching a dragonfly eclose near the shore of the pond. Birds on my walk were blue jay, robin, hermit thrush, and red-eyed vireo. Along the loop trail, I came across a raccoon lying beside the trail shuddering--uh oh! When I finished the loop, I reported the raccoon to the campground staff since it was clearly dying and might have been rabid.
6/12/19. Wenlock VT. and Keiser Pond, Peacham, VT. 0.3 miles today, 1880.7 miles total.
Categories: insects, blooms, woody plants, bryophytes
This morning I had breakfast down by Island Pond and had the immense excitement of watching a clubtail dragonfly eclose on a log beside the water. Then I set off to explore Lewis VT because it is a big blank spot on the iNaturalist map of Vermont, a town without a single observation. According to my big atlas, there were 2 possible roads into Lewis off of Route 105, just down the road from the campground. But when I got to the most likely of the 2 roads, I found it blocked with a chain that said private property. I turned back and tried the other road and found it entirely undrivable, at least in my Prius. It seems what is marked as a town on maps actually doesn't exist, or there are no public roads that get there--all private property with no access. So that's why there are no observations there. I found a pull-off beside Route 105 by some state lands and went for a short wander just to say I had been there. I found wild raisin, bluets, bunchberry, and a dandelion blooming, and for woody plants there were balsam poplar, quaking aspen, speckled alder, serviceberry, red maple, fir, lowbush blueberry, hazelnut, black cherry, tamarack, and mountain ash. Bryophytes were Hedwigia ciliata, Pleurozium schreberi, Ptilium crista-castrensis, Dicranum polysetum, Porella platyphyloidea, and Polytrichum juniperinum. I found a tiger swallowtail, a silver-bordered fritillary, a dusky indigo, a fungus moth, a geometer moth caterpillar, a bumblebee, and a flower fly. I also managed to catch a northern flicker.
On my way back home, I stopped at Keiser Pond in Peacham for a picnic lunch on a rock beside the water. As I ate, I became aware that I was completely surrounded by clubtail dragonflies eclosing. They were crawling out of the water as larvae and hanging from blades of grass, or even my backpack or pant legs, pausing for a few minutes, then emerging as teneral dragonflies as I watched, mesmerized. After the flood slowed a bit, I tiptoed back to the car, trying hard to make sure I didn't step on any larvae or tenerals.
6/14/19. St. Augustine Cemetery and North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 0.3 miles today, 1881 miles total.
Categories: arthropods
This afternoon I had a picnic lunch at St. Augustine's Cemetery in Montpelier, where I watched a mother deer and her fawn napping in the grass. Then I met up with 2 friends for a bug walk. We decided to drive out to the Nature Center and search for bugs in the community gardens. We found some moths (carpet moth, bag moth, Caenurgina, Olethreutes bipartitana, Hypena scabra), a Roesel's bush cricket, some leaf hoppers, some beetles (winter firefly, Ophraella, click beetle), some flies (eastern calligrapher, Misumena vatia, Dolichopodidae), some bees (eastern bumblebee, nothern amber bumblebee, honeybee), and a goldenrod stem gall.
6/15/19. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 2.1 miles today, 1883.1 miles total.
Categories: blooming, insects, fungi, ferns
This morning I returned to the nature center for a weekend workshop on fungi. We had a brief classroom session, then went out into the woods to the east side of the Nature Center to search for fungi. But I kept getting distracted by blooms and insects. I found catchfly, red-osier dogwood, Morrow's honeysuckle, dwarf raspberry, dewberry, damesrocket, and buckthorn in bloom, and some interrupted fern and oak fern, and some Pylasia selwynii as well as several sedges. There were lots of insects about, including flies (Sepsis, flower fly, cranefly), beetles (Necrophila americana on a dead deer), bees (sweat bee, honeybee), wasps, a bug (Perillus circumcinctus), butterflies (tiger swallowtail), moths (several rosy maple moth eclosing, an American tent caterpillar), a scorpionfly, spiders (wolf, crab), a red velvet mite, a millipede, and some galls (goldenrod stem gall, cherry leaf galls). For fungi, we found chicken of the woods, wolve's milk, turkeytails, Scutellinia, Chlorociboria, Bisporella citrina, Dryad's saddle, chaga, and Trichaptum biforme. I also caught a chipmunk, a spring peeper, and a turkey vulture. I took it easy during the hike and asked the leader, Dave Muskas, to carry a walkie talkie in case I had trouble, but I was fine.
6/16/19. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 0.4 miles today, 1883.5 miles total.
Categories: insects, blooming, fungi
This morning at the fungus workshop we went up the trail on the west side of the Nature Center. I found some beetles, bees (tricolored bumblebee), flies (Sarcophaga, Bibio, flowerfly), a bug (red elder bug), and a millipede while supposedly looking for fungi (I found some turkeytails). I also found goatsbeard, some daisies, and blue-eyed grass in bloom. One person on the workshop found a garter snake, which he picked up and showed around to everyone.
6/17/19. Buck Lake Rd, Woodbury, VT. 2.8 miles today, 1886.3 miles total.
Categories: trees, ferns, blooming, galls, insects
This afternoon I walked along Buck Lake Rd in Woodbury. This road leads from Rt 14 to Buck Lake, a small lake in a state forest with a conservation camp. The road is in rough shape; it is drivable but not very fast, so there is very light traffic. Along the road, I found eastern hemlock, hobblebush, sugar maple, red maple, striped maple, mountain maple, yellow birch, paper birch, beech, white ash, basswood, staghorn sumac, elm, mountain ash, fir, balsam poplar, bigtooth aspen, apple, white pine, trembling aspen, and buckthorn. Blooming today were chokecherry, false Solomon’s seal, foamflower, wild sarsaparilla, strawberry, Canada mayflower, alternate leaved dogwood, white baneberry, speedwell, golden Alexander, daisy, wild chervil, columbine, striped maple, and bluebead lily. Ferns were royal fern, beech fern, maidenhair fern, interrupted fern, Christmas fern, bracken fern, New York fern, cinnamon fern, sensitive fern, marginal wood fern, oak fern, shining clubmoss, prickly clubmoss, wood horsetail, field horsetail. I kept my eye out for galls and found ocellate gall midge, plum finger gall mite, alder tongue gall, and red nail gall mite. And insects were hobomok skipper, northern crescent, tiger swallowtail, wild indigo duskywing (dead on the road), aurora damsel, flaming-pillow beetle, and a pair of unidentified beetles copulating on a leaf.
6/18/19. Downtown Montpelier, VT. 2 miles today, 1886.3 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, unintentional plants
Today I went for a walk around Montpelier, making a loop around Elm, Main, School and Loomis streets. I kept my eye out of weeds and other unintentional plants and came up with American jumpseed, red oak, pineapple weed, grapes, helleborine, purslane, black raspberry, black medick, field horsetail, centaury, common sunflower, dandelion, greater celandine, elm, sugar maple, garlic mustard, white campion, pearlwort, buckthorn, Japanese barberry, sensitive fern, horse chestnut, orange hawkweed, English plantain, and red elder. Insects I found along the way were an Andrena bee, a Gasteruption wasp, an alfalfa leafcutter bee, a common eastern bumblebee, a honeybee, a European paper wasp, an Ichneumon wasp, a six-spotted tiger beetle, a skipper, and a narcissus bulb fly. Birds today were catbird, pigeon, rose-breasted grosbeak, gull, robin, goldfinch, broad-winged hawk, blue jay, and a robin.
6/22/19. Downer State Forest, Sharon, VT. 0.1 miles today, 1886.4 miles total.
Categories: Eye catching
After being down for a few days (no idea why), I returned to Downer State Forest this afternoon for a picnic lunch on my way to New Hampshire. This time, I found the section of the forest that I was looking for last week, but I had no energy for any hiking. Still, while seated, I managed to find a toad, some jack-in-the-pulpit, a maidenhair fern, and a dogtick. The tick was on some grass, not on me, thank goodness!
6/24/19. Eagle Hill Institute trails and McClellan Park, Steuben, ME. 1.1 miles today, 1887.5 miles total.
Categories: arthropods
Today was the first day of a week long workshop at Eagle Hill on photographing arthropods taught by Kefyn Catley. I was there with my mother, one of my Montpelier bugwalk friends, and 7 other students. After a brief session in the lab in the morning, we went out to the blueberry fields on the east side of the campus to get some bug photos. Before breakfast we had found a luna moth, northern pine sphinx, and straight-lined plagodis outside the dining hall, leftover from the night before. In the blueberry fields, we found a common ringlet, hummingbird clearwing, and blueberry sallow caterpillar, a margined calligrapher, variable duskyface, and fruit fly, a Hoy’s jumping spider, harvestmen, assorted spiders, a weevil (Himatolabus pubescens), a flower beetle (Evadinus monticola), a click beetle (Ampedus mixtus), ants, a tricolored bumblebee, and a grasshopper. We also found a northern ringneck snake. And I couldn’t resis shooting a few plants, balsam fir, black chokeberry, bunchberry, pink lady’s slipper, and black huckleberry.
After lunch we drove out to McClellan Park on the coast for more bug photos. After having been sick for nearly a week, I decided to play it safe and not walk far at the park, hanging out mostly by the parking lot, other than taking a short glimpse at the water (where I saw an eider duck). I shot quite a few plants here, including 3-toothed cinquefoil, bayberry, blue-eyed grass, lingonberry, green alder, creeping juniper, common juniper, whorled loosestrife, Labrador tea, sheep laurel, mountain holly, and serviceberry. Insects I found here were racket-tailed emerald, 7-spotted lady beetle, weevil (Neapion), 6-spotted tiger beetle, click beetle (Melanotus Leonardi), a Crambid snout moth, a margined calligrapher, a blow fly, a dark paper wasp, spider wasp, Ancistrocerus bee, bumblebees, mason bee, and various spiders.
In the evening I did some mothing outside the lab building. I found gray halfspot, a pug moth, Isabella tiger moth, sweetfern geometer moth, Hypena, luna moth, modest quaker, Lochmaeus, pale-winged midget, white slant line, Hydriomena, common gluphisia, early button slug, the brother, green-dusted zale, northern pine looper, lemon plagodis, bent-line carpet, straight-lined plagodis, various micro moths, a May beetle, soldier beetle, black vine weevil, snipe fly, caddisfly, spider, and an ichneumon wasp.
6/25/19. Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge, Steuben, ME. 1.8 miles today, 1889.3 miles total.
Categories: insects
Before breakfast today I found a curve-toothed geometer, common gluphisia, white-fringed emerald, white slant-line, the brother, straight-lined plagodis, and arched hooktip waiting on the walls of the dining hall.
After breakfast, our class took an all-day field trip to Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge, which is just down the road from the Eagle Hill Campus. We had about a half mile hike from the parking area to the shore where we planned to eat lunch. I gulped when it was announced how far we would walk, both for my sake and my mother’s. The 2 of us set off together, walking straight through without stopping much for photos. Although she is 81 and a bit lame, she was still able to walk faster than me today. And despite our plan not to pause along the trail, I got distracted by plants, black chokecherry, yellow rattle, orange hawkweed, bunchberry, tamarack, black huckleberry, bracken fern, cinnamon fern, Labrador tea, sheep laurel, common juniper, black crowberry, paper birch, mountain ash, lingonberry, mountain holly, white cedar, wild raisin, blue flag, seaside pea, sheep sorrel, sea plantain, ragweed, yarrow, curly dock, strawberry, lowbush blueberry, common cinquefoil, and starflower. Once we got out to the shore, we sat down for a picnic on the rocks with the rest of the group. After lunch, we poked about the shore and a small pond, hunting for insects amongst the dried seaweed. My friend stripped down to her bathing suit and went for a plunge in the water. She reported that it really wasn’t that cold, but none of the rest of us were willing to follow her example. For arthropods, I found a skipper, a Lucia azure, a 7-spotted lady beetle, some click beetles (Dalopius, Ampedus mixtus), Tricholochmaea, a bee-like flower scarab, a minute seed weevil, a grasshopper, a tricolored bumblebee, an eastern calligrapher, margined calligrapher, a Xylota fly, a jumping spider, Allocosa spiders, a bluet, a corporal, and an eastern forktail. I also found a dog whelk shell, a common whelk shell, a herring gull, and a green frog in the pond.
6/26/20. Eagle Hill Institute, Steuben, ME. 0.3 miles today, 1889.6 miles total.
Categories: insects
It rained all day today, so our class spent the entire day in the lab working on our photographs. By afternoon I was going stir-crazy, so my friend and I took a break from the computer and went for a walk around campus to look for live insects. We searched and searched, and finally, under a blade of grass, we found a single robber fly (Laphria). We captured it in a plastic container and brought it back to the lab for photography practice. After a few hours and many photographs, we released it again.
In the evening, after the rain stopped, I found a peppered moth, some caddisflies, and a pink-barred pseudeustrotia moth outside the lab building.
6/27/19. Corea Heath and Little Tunk Pond, ME. 1.5 miles today, 1891.1 miles total.
Categories: insects
This morning our class took a field trip to Corea Heath, one of my favorite spots from last year’s sedge course. It’s a short flat walk to a small viewing platform over the bog. We were supposed to be photographing insects, but there weren’t that many since the weather hadn’t warmed up yet after yesterday’s cold rain. And I kept getting distracted by plants, of course. I found tamarack, round-leaved sundew, winterberry, Labrador tea, grass pink, wild raisin, black chokeberry, wrinkle-leaved goldenrod, white cedar, sheep laurel, pitcher plant, Canada mayflower, starflower, common juniper, paper birch, sweet gale, daisy, and my favorite sedge, Merritt Fernald’s sedge. For insects, I found some spread-winged damsels, a goldenrod crab spider, some Zebra jumping spiders, a margined calligrapher and several other flies, a grasshopper, a froghopper, a bagworm, and a beetle, Calligrapha apicalis.
From Corea Heath, we continued on to Little Tunk Pond in hopes of catching some dragons. We had our picnic lunch in the parking lot for Little Tunk, then walked down the trail to the pond. Along the trail and at the pond, I found valerian, red raspberry, hawthorn, cinnamon fern, balsam fir, striped maple, red spruce, red maple, lady fern, hobblebush, hemlock, partridgeberry, beech, white cedar, starflower, cucumber root, Labrador tea, mountain holly, white pine, bracken, serviceberries, bunchberry, marsh St Johnswort, painted trillium, yellow birch, and a curious maple that looked like a cross between a red maple and a striped maple. Again, we didn’t find many insects, and no dragons, except for a large dragonhunter nymph in the water. Our other find along the pond trail was a pair of modest sphinx moths copulating. Spectacular, best find of the week! At the pond we found a yellow-spotted pond fly, some Sialis flies, a leech, a slug, and a Chinese mystery snail.
When we returned to the Eagle Hill campus, I found a bronze ground beetle in front of the classroom building. Pickings were slim at the moth light in the evening. I found a hickory tussock moth, a peppered moth, and several caddisflies.
6/28/19. Winter Harbor and Schoodic Point, Gouldsboro, ME. 1.5 miles today, 1892.6 miles total.
Categories: insects, mosses, ferns, invasives, woody plants
This morning I found a blinded sphinx on the wall outside the dining hall. After breakfast our class took a walk along a loop trail at Winter Harbor that descended through the forest, continued a short ways along the beach, then returned back up through the forest. I went slowly along the trail, enjoying finding insects, mosses, and ferns in the woods. It wasn’t until we got to a small opening just above the beach that we started finding lots of insects, pollinators on the flowering plants there (lots of invasives like Rosa rugosa). As we walked along the beach, I began to feel weak. My 81-year-old lame mother was talking with a fellow classmate and went way ahead. Fortunately, my friend noticed that I was having trouble and stayed back with me, along with 1 of the 2 retired doctors on the course. Putting one foot in front of the other, slowly, I made it back up the hill to the parking lot. What was wrong with me? Insects on this hike were a skipper, a common ringlet, an isopod, isopod, a nomad bee, a sweat bee, a honeybee, a bumblebee, a skimmer, a hairy flower scarab, an Asian lady bug, and an eastern calligrapher. Mosses were Pleurozeum schreberi, Bazzania trilobata, Dicranum polysetum, Mnium hornum, Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus, Polytrichum commune, Leucobryum glaucum, and Hypnum imponens. Invasives were wall lettuce, oriental bittersweet, lily of the valley, Japanese barberry, oxeye daisy, asparagus, mullein, dame’s rocket, lilac, lupine, tansy, and Rosa rugosa. Other plants were red oak, apple, American bittersweet, interrupted fern, sensitive fern, cinnamon fern, intermediate wood fern, and lady fern.
After lunch we drove out to Schoodic Point for one last shooting section on the beach. From where we parked, there was only a 50’ walk through the woods to the rocky shore. I walked just to the edge of the rocks and no further to save my energy. For arthropods, I found a bumblebee, a Ancistrocertus, a margined calligrapher, a bristleside fly, a black-legged gossamer, and a black and white spider (Habronattus calcaratus). I also found mountain ash, bush honeysuckle, lingonberry, bunchberry, black chokeberry, juniper, black crowberry, bayberry, Rosa rugosa, currant, cranberry, 3-toothed cinquefoil, and sea plantain.
6/29/20. Dyer’s Point Rd, Steuben ME. 0.1 miles today, 1892.7 miles total.
Categories: arthropods
My mother and I headed back to New Hampshire this morning, but we stopped first at Dyer’s Point Rd for one last walk by the ocean. We found several spiders, a northern amber bumblebee, an isopod, and some dragonfly wings. We also found some yellow rattle in bloom.
6/30/20. Sodom Pond Rd, Adamant, VT. 0.7 miles today, 1893.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, blooms, insects
After dropping my mother off in New Hampshire, I continued on home yesterday. Since I was home, I got to do my Sunday bird walk in Adamant this morning. I found a purple finch, a grackle, a song sparrow, a phoebe, a ruby-throated hummingbird, a cedar waxwing, a red-winged blackbird, an American crow, a turkey vulture, a yellow warbler, and a robin. Of course, I also looked for insects and found an eastern forktail, a bluet, a spreadwing, a margined calligrapher, a river jewelwing, a northern amber bumblebee, a chalk-fronted corporal, Wilke’s mining bee, a perplexing bumblebee, and a white admiral. Blooming today were meadow anemone, yellow iris, bishop’s weed, bittersweet nightshade, meadow rue, silverweed, thimbleberry, wild raisin, peony (escaped), and honeysuckle. Budding were Joe Pye weed, black knapweed, and Queen Anne’s lace.
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