August 09, 2017

Notes and Changes since last report

• It started at 75°F, clear, and calm at 11:30 AM on August 9, 2017.
• This week's trail report covers the Wappinger Creek Trail side of the trail system.
• Cicadas have been calling during the day, katydids at night.
• I had company on the trails today.

The Trails

• Once again monarchs could be found in many of the fields, including a well worn individual behind Gifford House.
• A painted lady was in the Canada thistle right at the trail head.
• She had the uncanny ability to take off almost every time I got the camera on her.
• I took a break to get something easy: one of a number of great spangled fritillaries.
• One more try and I got her laying eggs on the thistle.
• Something bigger buzzed by and dropped into the bedstraws and grasses: a cicada.
• I said "good enough" and continued along the front Old Hayfield surveying the first goldenrods in bloom.
• Today I remembered to get after the black swallowwort along the side of the field. Pods were turning yellow or brown. Their evil seeds would soon be flying.
• Out off the edges of the fields, house wrens were scolding.
• A dangling triangle caught my eye - dogbanes apparently resemble their milkweed cousings in have paired pollen sacks, "pollinia". Insects too weak to carry them away can be doomed when they stuck to them.
• Another danger in many flowers is the ambush bug. This pair was too busy to be a threat.
• The harmless hunchback bee fly was a very cool thing to find.
• Down on the Wappinger Creek Trail, Cary's own day campers were exploring the creek and showed us a bucket of whirligig beetles.
• Their eyes are split to see above and below the water line and a handfull of them smells like watermelon.
• Crayfish were deftly displayed for us.
• Near the Appendix, wood nettle now had its female flowers on top as well as the male flowers along the stem.
• Up the hill, a well seasoned red-spotted purple dropped in to bask in the sun.
• With the long tail it looked like a dove flying out of the Scots Pine Allée, but it was too big. It landed in that dead tree in the Little Bluestem Meadow.
• It was an American kestrel.
• The view of the red back and tail is distinct.
• Next week: the Cary Pines Trail side of the trail system.