75°F, cloudy and breezy at 10:45 AM, becoming brighter and warmer for a while.
Temps have been holding in the 80s and there have been showers and occasional rain every several days.
Three pairs of eyes today helped make more observations.
I don't usually select a feature photo from "the previous week" let alone off the usual route. Today, however...
The Trails
An eastern tailed-blue found one of us tasty, making "proceed with caution" a necessity on our part.
A moth flew into and might have escaped from an orb-weaver's well worn web, but the spider was quick.
In an amazing feat of deception, I coaxed the camera's well meaning, but misguided auto-focus onto a halloween pennant.
Oh yes, goldenrods, I realized, were beginning to bloom.
So were red chanterelles at the back of the Old Pasture - if mushrooms can be said to bloom.
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap a female dun skipper perfectly posed.
I'd spent some time last season on the Wappinger Creek Trail dealing with the first appearance of the recent invasive, Japanese stilt grass. Obviously, not enough time. The shiny mid-rib distinguishes it from a similar native grass. The extra stilt-like roots it puts down will confirm its ID.
In the Fern Glen, the antennae and proboscis were the flaw in the disguise. This was not the gentle (usually) pollen and nectar foraging bumble bee, but a predatious robber fly.
At the back of the pond, sneezeweed was beginning to bloom. Each dot in the cone is considered an individual flower.
Around the corner, sweet pepperbush was already filling the air with its scent even at this early stage.
