May 16, 2012

Notes and changes since last report

• It was around 75°, cloudy and windy at 2:30 PM on May 16, 2012.
• Red admirals were still around, but nothing like the week before.
• Little wood-satyr and common ringlet had both returned.

The Trails

• The pink lady's-slipper patch was boasting 10 blooms.
• A fresh, female Juvenal's duskywing allowed a photo on the way to the Old Gravel Pit.
• Crane flies are the largest family of flies. Unfortunately they can be mistaken for giant mosquitos, but they do not bite.
• On the hill approaching the Fern Glen, penstemon was beginnig to bloom.
• It was surrounded by the noxious black swallow-wort, just beginning to bud.
• The first white-striped black was in the 'Glen! This normally constantly moving day-flying moth even allowed a photo!
• A little bit of Labrador tea was actually looking good in the fen.
• The unmistakeable royal fern was coming up along the boardwalk through the fen.
• And cinnamon fern's fertile frond was beginning to make this one easy to ID.
• The 'Glen's single pink lady's-slipper was back again this year; last year was its debut.
• In the back of the 'Glen, the cluster of yellows had bounced back from being stomped by deer. Better than being eaten by deer.
• Red baneberry was now easy to ID by the long, thin seed stalks.
• I could smell it before I could see it: the swamp azalea, or perhaps more delicately put, "pinxter" was blooming and filling the air with it's fragrance.
• Along the edge of the pond was NOT multiflora rose. I'll have to work on this one.
• Common alumroot near the road is like giant bishop's cap.
• Out on the Cary Pines Trail, maple-leaved viburnum was budding up.
• I'd been wondering what was growing up around the foot bridge at the Appendix; it was a buttercup.
• Coming up through the sandy Wappinger Creek Trail soil was the alien star-of-Bethlehem.
• Nearby was another narrow-leaved bitter cress beginning to flower. A big plant like this can spew hundreds of seeds that persist in the soil for years.
• Wild stonecrop always looks other worldly.
• Here was this stuff again. Too many things look like this.
• I stopped to look at something and noticed a little garter snake. As I tried for a closer picture, it "ran" away.
• One-flowered cancer-root was everywhere in the back Old Hayfield today.
• Little wood-satyr and common ringlet had both returned.
• And I would return the next day to find tawny-edged skipper.