I stopped to look for the long, skinny seed pods and instead found a long, skinny caterpillar - one of the inchworms, or geometer moths.
Pods were indeed present, but in searching for the most photogenic I came across another caterpillar. Kind of like a very plain tiger moth, I thought... dogbane tiger moth? Only the Golden Guide agreed; "Delicate cycnia" claimed the other books... but the latin names were the same.
I settled on one nice grouping of pods and moved on.
Even though the back Old Hayfield had been mowed, I circled it anyway because, well, that's what I do. A large dark butterfly zig-zagged from behind and landed along the tree line - a mourning cloak!
Along that tree line, burning bush was warming up.
Birds eat the berries and assist the spread of this alien.
If it hadn't been for the 'cloak on this cool, gray day, a pearl crescent in the Old Pasture would have been more exciting.
Another little bit of orange went racing by... too fast for a "PC". It was an American copper.
A dead tree along the Wappinger Creek Trail was sporting some amazingly orange fungi. I'll have to keep an eye on these.
I interrupted my usual route to attend the dedication of two memorial benches, one in the Scotch Pine Alleé, and one in the Lowlands.
Members of the family, the Bird Club, and the Institute attended.
Back on my rounds again, I admired partridge berry tucked among the hemlock roots on the Cary Pines Trail.
A little farther along I was struck by the geometric regularity of Virginia creeper. creeping up a tree.
In the Fern Glen, a lesser traveled trail surprised me with black cohosh.
The sepals fall off and the petals are tiny giving the impression each blossom is just a cluster of stamens.
Witch hazel was just beginning to bloom around the pond and in the shrub swamp; I smelled it before I could see it.
Fungi were widely spread along the trails today. I stopped for a pair of puffballs in the Old Gravel Pit, but it had sprinkled briefly once already and I didn't want to push my luck so I pressed on wondering rather than waiting to see if it was slugs that had made the all too familiar holes.
Luck was indeed with me: drops began to fall as I approached my driveway and my clutch cable failed just as I arrived at the garage door. Bad luck doesn't get any better.
