June 01, 2016

Notes and Changes since last report

• It was 80°F and partly cloudy with light breezes at 1:30 PM on June 1, 2016.
• This week's trail report covers the Cary Pines Trail side of the trail system.
• Tawny-edged and hobomok skippers were among the returning butterflies today.
• The pink and yellow lady's-slippers in the Fern Glen were still going, but starting to look a little dry. Last chance for a good look...
• Shad flies were still here and were annoying today.

The Trails

• Iris were blooming in pockets around Gifford House and parking area.
• Clouds of little wood-satyr and common ringlet were in the Old Hayfields.
• Behind the Carriage House, beauty bush, or kolkwitzia, was blooming.
• The Little Bluestem Meadow had been mowed to keep down goldenrods and woody plants.
• Alien hawkweed was coming up on the dry path through the Scots Pine Alleé.
• Along the edge, ankle biting dewberry was showing up - that means keep an eye out for the hobomok skipper.
• In the Old Gravel Pit, the big elderberry in the locust grove was getting ready to bloom.
• And near the bottom of the Pit was our first hobomok skipper... on dew berry.
• Today seemed to be a spider web kind of day.
• One could smell the hay-scented fern before seeing it. And visually, it always seems somehow geometrically organized.
• A little cherry and its neighbor had been denuded by tent caterpillars on the way down to the Fern Glen.
• An escaped day lily was in the same little meadow, the Norway Spruce Glade.
• At the lower end of the meadow, beardtongue was still doing well.
• A perfectly posed dragonfly demanded a photo... and an attempt at ID: Common whitetail. One book resolved the issue of male wing pattern and female body pattern as the feature of the immature male.
• At the Fern Glen pond, a gray treefrog was perched by a brochure box...
• ... the frogs & toads brochure box, of course.
• Along the pond railing, wild geranium was still doing fine.
• On the pond railing, an eastern tent caterpillar was just hanging out.
• At the front of the pond, blueflag and a white sport of the same were side by side.
• Just in the path by the kiosk, bowman's root had just started.
• Just past it was a surprise that I think I smelled before I saw.
• It was the other swamp azalea that didn't look like it would do anything this year.
• It even had one of the galls that folks used to pickle.
• By one of the little bridges, a tall, weedy thing had appeared: water speedwell.
• A little syrphid fly, of flower fly, was feeding on the tiny blossom.
• Royal fern stood out distinctly against the skunk cabbage in the fen.
• On the other side of the boardwalk, strange pitcher plants were making their strange flowers.
• The maple-leaved viburnum near the acid cobble needed a check up.
• It was just beginning to bloom, but the surprise was ant tended caterpillars, both green, both red and red.
• Ants protecting honey-dew producing caterpillars is a common situation with the gossamer-wings, the butterfly family that includes hairstreaks, coppers and blues.
• That they were feeding on viburnum suggests they were Spring Azures.
• By the stone bridge, Indian cucumber root was blooming. It's a tiny lily.
• On the way out of the 'Glen, a crane fly was dangling on a maple leaf.
• A strange sight at the beginning of the Cary Pines Trail was a tiny oak sapling with fuzzy galls.
• Next week: the Wappinger Creek Trail side of the trail system.