June 24, 2020

Red Squirrel

Notes and Changes since last report

• It was 78°F, partly cloudy and windy at 1:35 PM on June 24, 2020.
• This week's trail report covers the Wappinger Creek Trail side of the trail system.
• There was some rain last night, but it's been dry with low humidity. And it's not been too hot - in the 80s.
• New butterfly returns included banded hairstreak and little glassy-wing. Hackberry emperor was in the Fern Glen Monday.

The Trails

• It was only 78° F and the air was dry, but the sun was strong and the shade just past the Gifford House trailhead was a stratagic first stop.
• Common milkweed had just started blooming, but the butterflies weren't on it yet. It is a favorite of their's.
• Here and there, alien Deptford pink was poking up.
• Farther out, black-eyed Susan was blooming.
• In the "darkroom" I noticed a couple beetles on one of the flowers.
• Nearby, little daisy fleabane had also come out.
• It too was being visited, this time by a tiny fly.
• Along the edge of the path, spreading dogbane had found a home.
• The pink stripes in the flowers easily distinguish it from our other two dogbanes.
• Another garden escapee is privet.
• This is the blossom that's been in the air lately.
• The bush honeysuckles have been done flowering and already have fruit ripening.
• In the back corner of the field was an expanse of another dogbane species.
• The white-ish blossoms of intermediate dogbane lack the pink of spreading dogbane, but have a hint of the green that Indian hemp offers.
• A screech and the clamor of blue jays brought my head up just in time to see a red-tailed hawk exiting with lunch in its talons .
• Back on ground, yarrow was in bloom with several small insects aboard.
• Somewhere along the Sedge Meadow Trail, a prairie warbler was singing. I swung my glasses up to a lump in a cherry tree.
• It was a red squirrel.
• And what's that at the edge of its eye? It sure looks like a tick.
• Maybe there's a view of the warbler from around the tree. No, just another look at the patient squirrel.
• In the Sedge Meadow proper a couple Appalachian browns flew by having a butterfly argument. Waiting for their return was not totally in vain: a rose-breasted grosbeak spent some time overhead.
• Below, a common whitetail darted out and returned to its perch a number of times.
• In the back Old Hayfield, a single fringed loosestrife was blooming. Note the fringe on the petiole - the leaf stalk.
• Bedstraw was dominating the view otherwise.
• One had to search for the lower growing cow vetch, but that was the butterfly magnet today, attracting our easiest skipper: the silver-spotted skipper.
• Least skippers were out in number.
• The European skipper is usually obviously larger and flies differently, but they can be tricky to sort out.
• Next week: The Cary Pines Trail side of the trail system.

Sightings