September 06, 2012

Notes and changes since last report:

• was mosty cloudy, 75°, humid and calm at 3:00 PM on September 6.
• Berries and seeds were ripening
• A few leaves were on the ground.
• The approach of Fall was getting harder to ignore.

The Trails

• One cluster of groundnut blossoms seemed odd.
• Around the limestone cobble, lopseed was waiting for a passing arm or leg to cling to; the little seeds are good at that.
• Bur-marigolds and beggar-ticks were along the boardwalk through the fen. Their long, two-pronged seeds will be looking for arms and legs later.
• One beggar-ticks was occupied, I believe, by a little froghopper, the immature form of which is the spittle bug, responsible for the blobs of white foam that adorned the stems of meadow plants earlier in the summer.
• I figured I'd find plenty of ripe spicebush berries, but it was winterberry that I first came across.
• It took a while, but finally a good representative of spicebush was found.
• Along the way, I passed by Indian cucumber root showing off its berries in its own way: with color in the surrounding leaves.
• Leatherwood had an interesting problem with some of its leaves - it looked like leafminer damage.
• Out on the Cary Pines Trail, was a humorous fungus perched on the stub of a broken branch.
• In the flood plain of the Wappinger Creek Trail, Japanese stilt grass was starting to bloom. Recognize it by the shiny mid-vein.
• There is so much this year that I didn't have the ambition to try to pull it up. But a weed whacker might be the right tool... and this would be the right time: before it seeds and when it's too late for it to try again.
• The rest of that trail was quiet until I climbed the hill and entered the Old Pasture. There I found myself in the midst of a mixed group of red-eyed vireo, black-throated blue warbler, American redstart, chickadee and titmouse.
• The wild bergamot was all but gone in the back Old Hayfield; the remaining aging goldenrods and low sun were reminding me again of the change of season.
• On several recent walks through here, I'd been scolded by something sounding like a wren. Today it was revealed as a common yellowthroat.
• Following the yellowthroat, I found a yellow spider... the yellow garden spider, who seemed to have a boy friend... and a bee.
• As the dry side of the Sedge Meadow Trail comes down to the front Old Hayfield, I found another nice group of birds with more red-eyed vireos and at least one magnolia warbler.
• I ran back to the back Old Hayfield to check something and when I turned to leave I found my path blocked by a rabbit!
• It was quite unconcerned and bolted only at the last moment as I pretended to try to sneak up on it.
• Now it was getting late; I bolted too.