It was 75°F, calm, and just started light rain as I arrived at 1:00 PM on May 22, 2013.
In spite of the gloom, some butterflies could be found, especially pearl crescents.
A classic encounter with a great horned owl topped the day.
Other interesting birds included Canada warbler and yellow-throated vireo.
The Trails
Rain. I considered turning back, but it was the first time in weeks that I was actually going to do my usual Wednesday at 1 walk... I put on my poncho.
Thoughts of dry knees were dismissed as casually as the first mosquito at dusk when a patch of germander speedwell, no higher than the grass blades, appeared before me in the first Old Hayfield.
I could have squatted for the newly opened buttercup...
Ah, the first spittlebug on bedstraw. They sip plant juices through one end and blow bubbles out the other. Effective fortification, but how do they breathe in there?
The viburnum by the old pumphouse was blooming. Did I ever figure it out?
Let's see... a shrub with a ball of like flowers as opposed to large petaled outer flowers as with hobblebush (see May 4).
Leaves with fine, sharp teeth and a pointed tip... Viburnum lentago, nannyberry. Yes, zooming in revealed a thin wing on the petiole - the leaf stem.
You don't see as many butterflies on a gray day, but when you do, they are much calmer and so allow closer observation, as did an unusually large American copper on the dry side of the Sedge Meadow Trail.
On the wet side, cinnamon fern was demonstrating the origin of its name.
In the back Old Hayfield, I finally determined by elimination that it was Russian olive that was blooming. After so many years, I would have recalled the juicy red berries were it autumn olive.
What was that call? The voice suggested indigo bunting, but the phrases were all wrong. I had a glimpse for only a fraction of a second, but the face was familiar... The black stripe and eye ring of the Kentucky warbler seemed to match, but not the call... oh well, onward.
Field pussytoes were along the steep drop from the bluff of the Wappinger Creek Trail.
Blooming farther along in the flood plain were star-of-Bethlehem and a plant that still eludes me.
Farther along clinging appropriatly enough to the Watershead kiosk, was a large Mayfly.
There was that call again! This time several good looks revealed the "necklace" of the Canada warbler. I still didn't like the song; I'd heard it well enough once before to have my own mnemonic for it: "Wickedly chocolaty, wickedly sweet!". Maybe that was the problem...
Twice I thought I heard the faint call of the winter wren as I entered the Fern Glen. Good enough. Keeping my ears tuned, I would later catch the raspy call of the yellow-throated vireo, too.
There was no problem IDing bellwort in the Roeller Bed, along the road.
The book's description of the difference from large-flowered bellwort seems obscure, but with the subject in hand, the size, color and granuals inside all come together.
False Solomon's seal was easy - it has frothy clusters terminally located vs a few bells in the leaf axils.
White baneberry has a more compact flower cluster than the red. Each individual flower is on a short, thick stalk that will be much more obvious when it goes to fruit. And even less subtle, the berry will be white instead of red.
There was more life in the swamp shrubs than appeared at the start of the season! Tiny bog rosemary was blooming right at the edge of the boardwalk.
And a few soggy steps in, Labrador tea was blooming.
The perennial favorite, pitcher plant has never disappointed us and was preparing this years display.
Back in the limestone cobble, twinleaf seedpods were getting big... and smug, it always seems to me.
Patches of blue were occasionally over head now, and a trail of black crossed my own in the Old Gravel Pit. It was springtails - a group of "primative" insects (I like to think "successful" - they haven't HAD to change over the millenia, they worked fine from the start!). Snowfleas are perhaps more familiar members of this order.
I was in back-to-the-barn mode as I cruised along the Little Bluestem Meadow, but the incessant call of 3-4 crows drew me down the path towards the water. "Maybe they have something," I thought "- a hawk or an owl." Through a gap I could see a big pine that would be right for an owl... A pattern was emerging when suddenly round, yellow eyes locked with mine; prominent "ears" stood out above. The crows were a pain, but I was probably too much; enormous wings unfurled and it put its back to me and the crows and was gone.
