July 05, 2017

Notes and Changes since last report

• It was 80°F, partly cloudy and calm at 1:30 PM on July 5, 2017.
• This week's trail report covers the Cary Pines Trail side of the trail system.
• New butterflies included coral hairstreak, common wood-nymph and dun skipper.
• Many small obscure moths were under foot on the trails.

The Trails

• Along the road side of Gifford House parking, common milkweed was blooming well.
• Off the end of the parking lot, invasive crown vetch was at its peak.
• Behind the Carriage House, black raspberries were ripening - looks like a good year for them.
• In spite of having been mowed earlier this season, the patch of spreading dogbane was blooming.
• It was very popular with great spangled fritillaries.
• Silver-spotted skippers were probably in equal numbers.
• How did a moth that big get into the brochure box in the Old Gravel Pit?
• Oh, it came in as a caterpillar and pupated; and now the adult hatched.
• It was the eastern tent caterpillar moth.
• Wild basil was blooming along the road to the Fern Glen.
• A wrapped up goldenrod suggested a caterpillar was within.
• But no, it was a big spider or at least its babies.
• In the limestone cobble, the comical twinleaf pods now looked like they were loosing their teeth.
• Fruit of the maple-leaved viburnum was forming.
• Purple-flowering raspberry seemed very late to bloom, but a later check said maybe a week.
• Back in the fen, arrow arum was blooming with its jack-in-the-pulpit-like flower.
• Round-leaved sundew was back again - some years it seems completely absent.
• A surprise was an Abbot's sphinx caterpillar in an elderberry - it was actually on Virginai creeper that was winding through the elderberry.
• A closer examination of the elderberry itself revealed fruit forming.
• A native loosestrife, swamp candles was blooming.
• Up above, poison sumac berries were forming.
• Down below, large cranberry was flowering.
• On the way back out of the 'Glen, a caterpillar had balled up leaflets of a fern.
• Out on the creek side of the Cary Pines Trail, little moths were scattering with each step. They've been on every trail today. Maybe by next week I'll have an ID.
• Next week: the Wappinger Creek Trail side of the trail system.