May 01, 2019

Notes and Changes since last report

• It was 55°F, cloudy and calm at 2:45 PM on May 1, 2019.
• Last week featured 16 new flowers - this week 17.
• It was too cool and gray for butterflies today.
• This week's trail report covers the Wappinger Creek Trail side of the trail system.

The Trails

• The view across the front Old Hayfield at Gifford House gave a bleak start to today's walk.
• Last year's sensitive fern stalks promised new growth... soon.
• All along the edge of the field, bedstraws were erupting.
• The Sedge Meadow Trail had the first blooming garlic mustard.
• A less troublesome alien, purple dead nettle, was not much farther along the way.
• The Sedge Meadow itself was greening.
• Tussock Sedge was resposible for most of that.
• Rising above it all was cinnamon fern.
• Above even that maple keys were forming.
• In the back of the far Old Hayfield, Japanese barberry was beginning to flower.
• In the same area, ironwood catkins indicated its birch family membership.
• The tiny female flower is easily overlooked.
• Across in the back corner, flowering dogwood was coming into its own.
• The large, showy flower is actually a mass of small flowers surrounded by large, bracts.
• At the exit of the field, wild strawberry and dwarf cinquefoil were growing together.
• Out in the Old Pasture, invasive bush honeysuckles were forming flower buds.
• Recent rains hadn't been heavy, but maybe frequent: the Wappinger Creek was full and noisy.
• Oak twigs littered the forest floor. All with a diagonal break... squirrels?
• At the bottom of the hill, patches of wood anemone were scattered about.
• An orange fungus was on a few pieces of dead wood.
• Once in a while rue anemone stood out in isolation.
• The sycamore stump always deserves a glance.
• Sure enough, the fungus was producing quite the colony.
• Just past it, the little tributary was looking like it was out of a book.
• On the banks along the Wappinger Creek, Christmas fern was coming up.
• Downy yellow violet was down on the floodplain.
• Stinging nettle was easy to miss, but only once...
• The cool, wet weather has probably helped toothwort and others last longer this spring.
• Some trout lily had been forming seed already, some were still blooming.
• Ah, and the cut-leaved toothwort was still blooming too.
• Next week: the Cary Pines Trail side of the trail system.