March 2021: Describe your walk by adding a comment below
Each time you go out and make observations for this project, describe your walk by adding a comment to this post. Include the date, distance walked, and categories that you used for this walk.
Suggested format:
Date. Place. Distance walked today. Total distance for this project.
Categories.
Brief description of the area, what you saw, what you learned, who was with you, or any other details you care to share.
Comentarios
3/1/21. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 3151.3 miles total.
Categories: arthropods on snow
The air temperature was about 38F when I went out today, with the snow surface temperature at 0.5C. The sky was overcast again, but a dark, foreboding overcast. The driveway and roads have turned to ice, so I dug my big heavy leather boots with ice climbing cleats out of the back of the closet. It was great to be able to focus on looking for arthropods rather than having to watch my step the whole time. There weren't any though, all the way to the top of Peck Hill. I found my first snow fly on the way back down; it was crossing the farm field. As I was photographing and collecting it, a party of 4 young people came down the hill with their dog. Young people! What a sight! I hadn't seen any of them in person all year--my first of the season. I was glad I had my mask in my pocket and was able to slip it on before they got close since they were all well masked. They walked on by without saying hello, but at least their dog was friendly. I began seeing quite a few stoneflies after that and wound up with a tally of 48, plus a woolly bear.
I figured you must be over 3000 by now, but neat to see it all tallied up; congratulations!
I have noticed kids are much less likely to say hi these days; I think they were pulled away from people so much in the last year they've gotten a lot more cautious. The other day there was a baby in the grocery store, and I realized I hadn't seen such a thing in nearly a year.
3-1-21. Washington Valley Park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 958.25 miles total
Category: as much as possible
Today was the first day of the Rutgers Personal Bioblitz. I invited some more prolific posters to participate this year, and so I don't feel bad for posting a ton. I didn't have much time before rescue squad duty in the afternoon, so I walked at the local park. But I found my first official emerald ash borer trails (pretty much all our very large ashes are dead at this point) and then under some bark there were flat bugs, about 100 of them. I'd never seen those before, either. Otherwise the surprise was an Exidia fungus on an old stump.
3-2-21. Spruce Run State Park, Clinton, and Chimney Rock Park, Martinsville, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 959.5 miles total
category: everything
I drove out to Spruce Run reservoir today. First I walked across a mown area and the edge of the reservoir, then through the woods and a bit of artificial beach, and then a spit of land into the lake. It was very cold and the patchy snow and mud were frozen, though the snow did not quite hold my weight and I kept falling through (it's only 2 or 3 inches, though). Still, I much preferred the paved parts. A chickadee and a nuthatch both held still long enough for me to photograph them, as did two separate squirrels. Surprises included motherwort, a barn swallow nest, seedbox and clotbur.
In the evening I walked at another section of the local park, after dinner (we had to eat early due to Molly's class), just as the sun was setting. There was really nothing here that I haven't seen many, many times before, but it was nice to get outside again.
3-3-21. Allaire State Park, Wall, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 960.75 miles total
Category: everything
Carl and I drove down to this wooded state park on the coastal plain. There was a small pond and a powerline cut as well. Surprises included greater celandine, a possible conifer mazegill, tree moss (Climacium), skunk cabbage flowers (my first of the season), blue curls, a huge cecropia moth cocoon, fetterbush, a titmouse that sat still long enough for me to photograph it, cracked cap polypore, and my first ever Nandina domestica.
3-4-21. Coddington Farm, Warren, NJ 0.25 miles today, 961 miles total.
Category: everything.
I was not feeling well today (vertigo, which has since cleared up) but did manage to get out briefly in the late afternoon to this local park that I've visited countless times. Not much new here, though I found a different persimmon from their usual grove. Still it was very nice to get out at all.
3-5-21. Tullo Rd., Martinsville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 961.25 miles total
Category: everything.
Duty all day today, but I managed to get out here for 20 minutes or so in about the only hour I ended up having off all day. Again I walk here constantly, so not much new, aside from a spruce seedling I'd not noticed before. On the way home I photographed a road killed deer, and thought of you, Erika, and all your little road kill bugs and herps. This was a bit easier to see.
Sorry to hear about the emerald ash borer. Yikes--at least you were able to recognize it and document it. I've never seen Nandina domestica. Can it actually escape and grow wild in New Jersey?
3/9/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.4 miles today. 3151.7 miles total.
Categories: on the snow
After a week of down time, I finally felt well enough today to venture out for a short walk. I went as far as the end of the driveway and back. The temperature was about 40F and overcast. The driveway itself is quite icy, but I had my spikey boots on so my footing was secure. I shot the turkeys in the yard on my way down the hill, just in case I didn't see anything else. And then on the way back up the hill I found a stonefly which quite delighted me. It's a slow start for the bioblitz, for sure. But I probably won't start in earnest until the snow melts. With no trip to Martinique this year, my species count will be way down anyway.
Sorry to hear you weren't feeling well. I hope you continue to improve rapidly. I miss your Martinique posts; you would see so many things I'd never even heard of.
I think the Nandina was dumped. It was right next to a pile of what people are saying is probably tuna bones, at the back end of a little-used parking area in the woods. But it did seem to be growing just fine, and people see it up in New York City.
3-6-21. Raritan River Railroad, Milltown, NJ. 0.5 mile today, 961.75 miles total
Category: everything
Someone in the Personal Bioblitz posted a gluacous greenbriar and then insisted it was not. So I walked in along these little-used (but not abandoned) train tracks to find it and take more definitive photos. And I did (and it was). I also found two sets of basillica orbweaver eggs, the remnants of a big smartweed, holly leafmines, a stray yucca, and moth mullein.
3-7-21. Allamuchy State Park, Stanhope, NJ, and Top of the World Park, Green Brook, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 962.25 miles total.
Category: everything
Katie, Becca, and I drove up to this state park, to a section I'd not visited before. I set my hiking boots aside to put on when we got there, and failed to put them in the car! So I got up there wearing socks and slip-on, open-toed shoes to find the path about half very old snow and half deep mud, with numerous puddles, including one about 2 inches deep that stretched completely across the top of the only bridge (it had about one-inch wide lips on either side). I gave up. Katie and Becca walked the half-mile trail. I drove to the other end to meet them, only to find the lot there had not been plowed and the path was hard to see. I parked on the side of the road and worried, but they made it out fine. I did take a few photographs, but not of anything I don't see everywhere back home.
That was frustrating enough that in the afternoon I stopped at a local park on the way to the grocery store (this time in sensible shoes) and walked a little there, taking photos. Not a lot of surprised here, but there was a highbush blueberry I'd never noticed before, an evergreen bagworm, a blackberry knot gall, and the willow shrub had its bud scales cracked and the pussies were starting to show. Exciting.
3-8-21. Finderne Wetlands, Bridgewater, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 963.75 miles total
Category: everything
I walked this wet field (with woods on the edges) behind my son's trucking company's repair yard (and a historic house). There was a dead deer with both black and turkey vultures as well as common crows. I'm pretty sure I also heard a raven. There was an old beaver lodge, a song sparrow singing its little heart out, a flock of geese, and a tiny nest that iNaturalist's computer thinks belongs to a vireo (but it sat on top of a branch rather than hanging so I doubt it).
Plant-wise things were less interesting, with the first section callery pear, then Amorpha fruticosa, then a lot of matted grass I couldn't identify and mugwort, and finally a big patch of river birch (which is not very common in the wild here and may have been planted). I did find poison hemlock and horsenettle, plus two kinds of alder.
3-9-21. Duke Island and Raritan Valley Parks, Raritan and Bradley Gardens, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 964.5 miles total
Category: everything.
I walked in two spots in Duke Island park along a canal. I got bored, not finding much of interest so didn't go terribly far. Then on the way home stopped at a third spot, with a mown playfield and then a bit along the edge of a river. There are lesser celandine leaves everywhere. In a month every bank of every waterway will be yellow with it. I found a blooming bird's eye speedwell, and all the silver maples are blooming as well (though not the reds). There were lots of tiny Pardosa sp. spiders running over the ground. The duckweeds and watermeal are starting to come back out. I photographed the first robin of the month (they don't leave New Jersey but flock up all winter in obscure locations). Spring is starting to arrive.
Sounds like your bioblitz is off to a good start, except for the shoes that stayed home. Yup. I've done that. There was the time we were half way to the airport on my way to Sweden and I looked down and saw I had bare feet and no shoes in my bags.
3/10/21. Quarry Rd, Adamant, VT. 1.4 miles today, 3153.1 miles total.
Categories: interesting
This afternoon I had errands to run in Montpelier. I stopped in Adamant on the way for a relatively flat walk up Quarry Rd, searching for insects and whatever might be out. I stopped and chatted with a neighbor and saw 2 others on the road, plus a few folks down by the store, more people in one day than I've seen in months. Quarry Road is thawing with loose mud and flowing water on top of ice. If it didn't get so little traffic, it would be a mess. As it was, I still had to keep to mostly the center for solid footing. I should have had my bird lens to capture the woodpecker and mourning dove. But just had my macro lens, so I shot the big fir tree that had fallen across the road and was recently cleared. In the section that the power company had raped last year, clearcutting every tree within 20' of the powerlines, indiscriminately, including the mature apples. But they skipped firs that were actual threats, like this one, which was across the street from the powerline, but quite mature and not healthy. There were no bugs along the road. When I got home, I found my husband had shoveled a path along the deck so he could ride his unicycle. In the remaining snow on the deck I found a western conifer seed bug, which made my day.
Oh wow, I took the kids to the shore once with no shoes for any of them, but never to a foreign country! I love the image of unicycling on the deck. My mom (in southern NH) sent me a photo of a western conifer seed bug this week, apparently they are congregating inside her porch.
3-10-21 South Amboy, Raritan Bay, and Old Bridge Waterfronts, NJ. 1 mile today, 965.5
Category: as much as possible.
I drove out to the closest part of the shore that was likely to have both shells and some quiet water for ducks. Did not see any ducks. But.. I found killdeer (they were almost impossible to miss, they were so loud), a great blue heron, gulls (of course), brants and canada geese and song sparrows (all also of course) but then grackles, and an oystercatcher and sanderlings (both firsts for me!). So exciting!
There were also lots of shore plants I don't usually see, some sand flies, and the three usual clams (surf, soft shell and quahog) plus oysters, ribbed mussels, mud snails and slipper shells. I added 36 species to my section of the bioblitz in one day. Not bad at all.
Sounds like you had a great trip to the shore! Shore birds and sea shells--such fun!
3/11/21. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 1.4 miles today, 3154.5 miles total.
Categories: arthropods
This afternoon I took a short walk up Peck Hill. I didn't bother to strap on my cleats before I left the house, and I should have. Our driveway was sheer ice, top to bottom. The town road is down to mud, frozen and not yet gooey, so that was pleasant. I walked up Peck Hill just above the farm field, where the road starts to go through deep forest and becomes sheer ice. No arthropods on snow today, but by the farm field, the air temperature was quite warm, with the sunny southern exposure. I found a couple of box elder bugs scrambling through the leaf litter.
3-11-21. Chimney Rock Park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 966 miles total.
Category: everything
My husband and I walked this local trail through some of the best woods for wilflowers in the nearby area, though nothing but some snowdrops was blooming yet. I did see two blowflies and a downy yellowjacket queen, though. Soon...
3-13-21. Glenhurst and East County Parks, and Stirling Rd., Warren. 1.0 mile today, 967 miles total
Category: everything
Becca had her SATs today, so I walked at two nearby parks after dropping her off and then along a wooded section of the road the school is on while waiting to pick her back up. Not a ton of interesting finds, but there was blooming silver maples and elms that were starting to open. There were oak rough bullet galls, a bagworm with its larval skin half hanging out of the bag, a bunch of willow leaves at the tips of twigs that were rolled up like the party "blowouts" (I have no idea what does that). Plus some willowherb, mallow, giant ragweed, and sweetgum.
3-14-21. Fanwood Nature Center, Oak Ridge Park in Clark, and Polansky Park in Edison, NJ. 1.75 miles today, 968.75 miles total.
Category: everything.
I drove to an area of of the map that I've not photographed much and checked out three different parks there. First was a little wooded area of about 2 acres in the midst of a suburban development. Some boy scout troop in the mid 1990s laid out trails, put up signs and made a few bridges and boardwalks. It's starting to get pretty run down. I found Japanese holly and Japanese wisteria.
Next was a large park of mowed lawn and big old trees, but with a nice brushy/wooded margin. I found my first blooming chickweed of the year, and some catsear, and a hawthorn with galls.
Finally a run down park with a playground and woods, and in the woods a very beat-up old skatepark. Not a whole lot here, but some sweetgum, some catalpa, and a very brave robin.
Spring is happening so fast where you are...silver maples and chickweed already! We still have 8" of snow on the ground and the alders haven't begun to open yet.
3/13/21. Chickering VAST Trail, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 3156.5 miles total.
Categories: tracks, mosses
This morning I met up with my 4 friends for our Saturday morning hike. We strolled along the VAST trail past from Lightening Ridge Rd towards Chickering Rd. I started off looking for tracks since there was 1/2" of fresh snow on ice. I found snowshoe hare, white-tailed deer, and red squirrel. Then I was delighted to find a harvestman, although it was frozen on the snow. Later I paused to admire a red spruce that looked suspiciously like a Norway spruce, and some Hedwigia ciliata moss growing beside some Polypody fern that had surfaced on a south-facing rock.
3/14/21. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 2 miles today, 3158.5 miles total.
Categories: arthropods on snow
This afternoon I went out for my regular bug walk, but I didn't feel up to carrying my weather gear with me yet. I should have, though, because there were lots of arthropods wandering about. The air temperature was 28F and very blustery, the sun was bright, and the snow surface was also 28F. I found 2 Diamesa flies, 10 stoneflies, 5 brown Tetragnatha spiders, 2 green Tetragnatha spiders, a Eustala spider, and a Philodromus spider.
3/15/21. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, 2 miles today. 3160.5 miles total.
Categories: tracks
This afternoon was cold, 16F, and blustery when I went out, as well as quite sunny. I couldn't find any arthropods at all, so I photographed a few tracks along our driveway. First there was some crusty snowshoe hare tracks, then some fresh tracks that I think may have been fisher, following a snowshoe hare trail.
3/16/21. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT. 2 miles today. 3162.5 miles total.
Categories: arthropods on snow
The day started out quite cold this morning, 0F. But by afternoon when I went out for my walk, the temperature had risen to 30F. It was overcast and breezy. I carried my full weather equipment setup for the first time in 2 weeks. I found 5 stoneflies of perhaps 2 species, but no other arthropods. I also found some large tracks that had me wondering for a while. But they went up AND down the road, so maybe they were just a large dog.
LOL, I'm currently reading a novel about werewolves, where everyone tries to dismiss their tracks as those of a "large dog". We are finally down to just the occasional tiny pile of snow and it's been dry and cold so even the mud is not bad. But it's been days since I've seen a live arthropod.
3/17/21. Peck Hill Rd, Calais, VT 2 miles today, 3164.5 miles total.
Categories: arthropods
The air temperature was nearly 50F today, and the sky was bright and sunny. The snow is looking rather dingy. I stood for a while up by the farm field and listened to the faint tinkling sound of snow melting. I didn't find any arthropods on snow, but I found quite a flock of Graphocephala leafhoppers among the beech leaves by the field. As I walked back, I found myself tiptoeing more and more to avoid stepping on my sore heel. I think I'm going to take a month off from walking to see if I can get over this plantar fasciitis. Maybe I can get out on my bike or scooter instead.
Oh no, I hope the break does your fasciitis good. Mine lingered, despite taking it "easy", until I had surgery for something else and was pretty much off my feet for several days, and then not walking much at all for another week.
3-15-21. Lord Stirling Park, Basking Ridge, NJ. 1 mile today, 969.75 miles total
category: everything
It was very windy and about 28 degrees this morning. The cold was nice as it froze the mud well enough for me to walk on it, but the wind was biting and also kept trying to knock off my hat. This park is part of the Great Swamp and so very wet. I was looking for blooming alder, among other things. The first two patches I passed were not blooming, but the last one, overhanging the pond, had catkins at least lengthening, if not quite fully opened. Other things I saw included two birches (I think silver) that were fairly young and not in a place that made any sense to have been planted, but this is not a species that generally grows wild around here. Weird. There was a bracket fungus I didn't recognize, an egg-shaped stem gall on dogwood, what I think was actually a nannyberry (rather than our usual blackhaw) (but I scratched and sniffed and it did not smell bad, so I'm not sure). There were spiny rose galls, and maleberry, white meadowsweet and a baldfaced hornet nest, and a hawthorn with galls. And I took a neat photo of spatterdock leaves just unfolding underwater, through a thin layer of ice.
3-16-21. Audubon Plainsboro Preserve, Plainsboro, NJ. 2.25 miles today, 972 miles total.
category: everything
I met up (for the first time) with Bonnie (@mertensia) today and she showed me a neat peninsula into the lake here at the Audubon preserve. It was cold and gray today and even sleeted on us a little, but I didn't mind at all. I photographed my first red winged blackbirds of the year. We saw a lot of Chinese bush clover (but none of it fasciated; both of us have found fasciated ones recently), some nice wings on the branches of sweetgum, an apparently wild cotoneaster, lots of evidence of beavers, both new and old, maleberry, blueberry, Paulownia, my first blooming red maple of the year, big-toothed aspen, willows with "pussies" though I'm not certain they were pussy willows (I'm not at all good with shrub willows). There was the first duckweed of the season, a bunch of neat blueberry stem galls, horned oak galls, and an owl pellet. Bonnie had never taken one apart before, and I had a handy bag, so she took it home with her. Then there was bluecurls and fetterbush, fan clubmoss, and lots of fully blooming alders. oh, and seedbox and some weird, gray substance on a tree trunk that looked almost like paint but was brittle and had a foamy structure. Very odd. Then a white-throated sparrow, and a pine that I think is shortleaf (because of its long needles, ironically). a great day.
3-17-21. Chimney Rock Park, Martinsville, NJ. 1 mile today, 973 miles total
category: everything.
I walked at a local park this morning that is first the edge of a ballfield, then some rocky woods, then along the edge of a reservoir and up a swampy stream that feeds it. I've walked here many times, so this time I counted species that I managed to photograph. I counted 136 species. I ended up posting 133 observations but only in 112 species. I saw moth mullein, a Diatrype (I think ) fungus, oak rough bullet galls, a seedling white pine (very uncommon here), honeysuckle aphid damage, thistle stem galls, a dead spotted lanternfly (most of those are either eaten or completely rotted, this was in the crook of an Ailanthus tree). I saw a song sparrow living up to its name, a Lactuca of some kind, round-headed bush clover, probably spotted St. John's wort, and a rock covered in various lichen. Standing there, I thought to myself that I vaguely remembered seeing ebony spleenwort around here somewhere, and only then realized I was looking right at it, duh! on the way out I passed a marginal woodfern, an escaped spruce tree, and a very pretty (red) wintercreeper.
Wow! You have been having some great days exploring lately. So many fun galls, plus red-winged blackbirds. Your bioblitz is going well!
3/19/21. Frizzle Mountain. 0.1 miles today, 3164.6 miles total.
Categories: animals
This afternoon was sunny but cold. I ventured out for a short time just to walk around the house and inspect the compost pile for bugs. My friend has a compost project, Home Compost Exploration (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/home-compost-exploration) that I hoped to contribute to. After squatting beside our compost for a few minutes searching for bugs, I finally found a winter stonefly on a cabbage leaf. Hurray! I also met up with a chickadee, a nuthatch, and a pair of pesky red squirrels in the yard.
3/20/21. Frizzle Mountain. 0.1 miles today, 3164.7 miles total.
Categories: animals
This afternoon was warmer than yesterday, near 50F with bright sun. We only really had one major snowstorm this winter. In normal years as the snow starts to melt around this time in March, we would hear the brook at the bottom of our driveway roar with all the extra water. No sound from it this year. Unless we get some more rain, our neighbors dependent on springs for their water are going to be in a bind. Our dug well went dry 7 years ago in February so we put in a deep well that year. If we hadn't done that, we'd be rationing water severely by now, if we even had any water. We simply need a lot more moisture. In my walk around the yard today, I found a chickadee, a red-breasted nuthatch, a white-breasted nuthatch, a mourning dove, a red squirrel and a large fly in the compost. I was also delighted to find a stonefly on the snow. I found a Philodromus spider in the bedroom while doing some dusting.
3/21/21. Frizzle Mountain. 0.1 miles today, 3164.8 miles total.
Categories: animals
This afternoon it was properly warm, near 60F. In my long stroll around the house, I found a chickadee, a white-breasted nuthatch, a red-breasted nuthatch, a purple finch, a hairy woodpecker, and a red squirrel. Also, a fly in the compost and a paper wasp on the house siding. I also found an ant in the greenhouse. And the first chipmunk of the year appeared outside the front steps.
We get chipmunks occasionally through the winter, but haven't seen one since mid-January. Sounds like things are really starting to wake up, even up in the frozen north.
3-18-21. Washington Rock Rd., Green Brook. 0.25 miles today, 973.25 miles total.
Category: everything
It was absolutely pouring rain and also densely foggy, but I had a half hour to kill before meeting a friend for lunch, so I pulled out my umbrella and walked at this tiny park which is mostly occasionally mowed grass with a shrub border, and then a lookout that has one of the best views around, but not today! Nonetheless, there were two other people at the park, one of whom got out and walked to the lookout. No one else was taking photos, though. I got a nice artistic shot of smooth sumac, and I saw a thyme-leaved sandwort I've never noticed here before.
3-19-21. Washington Valley Park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 973.5 miles total
Category: everything
A lovely day today, but I was on duty, so I walked around the parking lot in the woods at this the closest park to the squad building. I've been here many, many times, and, despite weedy flowers in waste places being open already, the wood spring ephemerals are not. Still I saw both spotted wintergreen and partridgeberry, both things I only see in older woodland, and some leaves with oak shothole leafmines. But then just before I got back to the car, my first ever many-rooted earthball fungus. Granted it looked like a dog poop someone had stepped on, or a rotted piece of leather, but it was still cool!
3-20-21. Wolfe Pond Park, Staten Island, NY. 1.5 miles today, 975 miles total
Category: everything
Only 25 more miles to go to 1000!
Katie and I drove to NYC to check out a park I was considering for the the City Nature Challenge next month. I'm glad I did as it wasn't as diverse as I'd hoped (despite having woods, lawn, pond, and beach) and I think I'll use a different site. We saw brants and Canada geese; ring-billed, herring, and great black-backed gulls; mallards, swans, and (probably lesser) scaups; mocking birds, and song sparrows.
Then there were a horseshoe crab shell, quahogs, soft-shelled clam, razor clam, blood ark, slipper shell, mud snail, shark eyes, oyster drills and thick-lipped drills. Unusual plants were moth mullein, sea lettuce, clotbur, and bladder wrack.
But the coolest thing was what I thought was star coral but turned out to be the premaxilla of some kind of seabream (or relative), in other words the bone the teeth attach to (without teeth) of the kind of fish that looks most like it has human teeth (my kids have seen them a lot on "weird nature" shows). Very exciting.
3-20-21. Delaware Canal State Park, South Bound Brook, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 975.5 miles total
Category: blooming
I have been IDing for a NJ boarding school's annual spring bioblitz and all the kids are posting blooming weeds, so i wanted to go photograph some, too. This parking lot by the canal is the best spot I know of for those earliest weeds, so I went there. There was not a cloud in the sky, and I was not disappointed at all. I found: birds-eye, ivy-leaved, and gray field speedwells; chickweed; purple deadnettle; Whitlow grass; red maple, American elm, and an alder all blooming. But the highlight was jagged chickweed, only the second I've ever found and the third record of it from NJ at all on iNat.
3-21-21. Washington Valley Park, Martinsville, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 976.75 miles total
Category: everything
I wanted to see if the wood frogs were out so I hiked this, one of the best spring wildflower trails around. Not much in the way of the flowers yet, though. I did see some escaped snowdrops blooming, and the lesser celandine has just started blooming. I heard spring peepers but didn't see them. I think I missed the wood frogs, though, but I found frog spawn. And then there were sunning painted turtles (my first turtles of the year) and wood ducks!
Great finds with the earth ball fungus and sea bream! I haven't heard any wood frogs yet. One of my most cherished woodland memories was a day in early April when I went walking through the Chickering Bog woods and stood by a vernal pool for hours watching the wood frogs. The males were in the mostly frozen pool calling and the females were hopping down the hill over the snow, arriving at the pool, then skittering across the ice with attached males. No chance of getting up there this year, but maybe I can visit some of the beaver ponds in Adamant.
3/22/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3164.9 miles total.
Category: animals
This afternoon was pleasantly warm (60F) and sunny. As I walked around the house, I found a squirrel and a chipmunk, a chickadee, a red-breasted nuthatch, a purple finch, and a hairy woodpecker. In the compost I found another fly. I also found a Philodromus spider and an Asian ladybug.
3/23/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3165.0 miles total.
Categories: animals, phenology
This afternoon was sunny and warm again, but there weren't as many birds to shoot. I found a black-capped chickadee and a white-breasted nuthatch, plus a red squirrel and a chipmunk. In the compost today was a small fly of some sort. There were also some fruit flies, although I wasn't able to shoot any. I checked the hazelnut behind the woodshed for blossoms. None yet. In the evening I tried some mothing but only found a flock of Diamesa flies.
3/24/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3165.1 miles total.
Categories: animals, phenology
This afternoon was overcast and a little cooler when I went out for my stroll around the yard. I found a chipmunk, a chickadee, and a red-breasted nuthatch. In the compost pile I found the flock of flies, but they seemed to be lesser dung flies, not fruit flies. On the far side of the driveway I discovered a new-to-me hazelnut bush, one that is more easy to access than the one behind the woodshed. No sign of blooming there yet. I also photographed some red and sugar maple buds, still tightly closed. In the evening I actually found a moth at the porch light, a red Acleris, plus more Diamesa flies.
3-22-21. Hoffheimer Grotto, Warren, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 977.5 miles total
category: everything
I walked at the local "grotto" but found a new trail I'd not noticed before, across a very sketchy bridge with loose railings. Unusual things included a deer leg, with no evidence of the rest of the deer, in the middle of the parking lot, lots of rough oak bullet galls, slippery elm buds breaking, and a hazel in full, glorious bloom with the densest collections of catkins I've seen (they are not at all common here). But the most interesting was some moss or lichen growing inside a hollow tree that seemed to glow in the bright daylight. I'm wondering if they are "goblin gold" moss, but I'm not at all sure.
2-23-21, Jamesburg Park, Helmetta, and Top of the World Park, Green Brook, and Michael Lepp Park, Somerville, NJ. 2.25 miles today, 979.75 miles total.
Categories: blooming, everything
I drove down to Jamesburg, pretty much the most northerly section of the Pine Barrens, and checked out a trail I'd never been on before, to a bird blind on a pond (no birds). Unusual finds for me included tons of celophane bees (I'd already walked over hundreds of nests in the sandy trail before I started noticing the nests), trailing arbutus, a discarded hen and chicks plant that was doing just fine in the dirt parking lot, glaucous greenbriar, a wood cockroach, sheep laurel, a clubmoss, clavate oak galls, mountain laurel, sweet magnolia, fetterbush, gallberry, wintergreen, leatherleaf, white cedar, stagger bush, a possible slime mold, spider wasps, and one of the big oak apple galls that's webby inside.
In the afternoon, someone on iNat asked about a structure that looked like it came from the inside of Paulownia fruit so I walked to the far side of this very local park to a tree that I knew had low-hanging fruiting branches. Sure enough, it was there, sort of the base on which the winged seeds form, as in a milkweed pod, but more sturdy. While I was there I spotted blooming American elm, a house spider with 6 egg sacs and most exciting: a comma butterfly, very calmly sitting in the trail and spreading its wings for me.
Then in the evening Katie wanted to go for a walk after dinner, and Carl joined us. We drove to this park in Somerville as I wanted to see if the through trail was still closed nearby (it was). Carl was thrilled as four passenger trains went by while we were there. And Katie was happy as we walked to an ice cream store afterwards. The ground was so covered in blooming whitlow grass that Katie said it looked like snow. We also saw closed lesser celandine and birds eye speedwell flowers and blooming American elm and common groundsel.
2-24-21. Eastfields park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 980.25 miles total.
Category: blooming
I went to this local park on a very gloomy (but not raining) day to look for the coltsfoot I'd seen here last year. No luck. No luck with blooming spicebush, either. I did find a ton of neglected snow drops, all mostly closed but still pretty, and a few lesser celandine (soon this floodplain will be carpeted in their yellow blossoms). There were also a couple skunk cabbage flowers and I took a pretty shot of red maple just starting to open.
First cockroach of the year? Wow! I don't think we'll see any until June. And a passenger train--that's really cool. I think it's been a year since any passenger trains came through Vermont.
3/25/21. Dover Rd, Montpelier, VT. 0.8 miles today, 3165.9 miles total.
Category: arthropods
Yesterday, my friend @emendela called to say that our instructor from our bee class last year, @beeboy, and one of our fellow students, @dougburnham, had posted some bees from Montpelier this week. So we decided to meet up with @edlintonvt this afternoon for a bug walk in search of bees. We started off at the house of our friend Ann, who has loads of winter aconite blooming in her yard right now. We found several honeybees and some other small bees (Andrena? Dialictus?) in the aconite, as well as apple leaf skeletonizer moths, some cluster flies, and some black flies. We also lots of wolf spiders running around on the ground. Ann brought out a woolly bear to show us that she had found on her driveway. I found some small blueberry stem galls on her blueberry bush and a snail shell in her garden. Then we went across the street to Ed's house to paw through his compost. We found some picnic beetles and a tiny rove beetle in the compost. On the house siding we found a menagerie of arthropods, including weevils (a mating pair), Diamesa flies, a Philodromus spider, some leafhoppers, a geometrid caterpillar, some cluster flies, and a winged ant. In the grass we found lots of wolf spiders, some ants, and an isopod.
In the evening, I did some mothing and actually found some moths, several Noctuids, several Agonopterix, and a Crambid, plus a flock of Diamesa flies again.
3/26/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3166.0 miles total.
Category: animals
This afternoon was cooler. It had rained in the morning, but we had a few hints of sunlight at lunch time, so I went out for a stroll in the yard while I could. I found a strutting turkey, a hairy woodpecker, a chickadee, a chipmunk, and a red squirrel. In the compost there were some dung flies. The snow has melted beyond the 50% mark (at least 50% of the ground showing) so I was able to wander about into the yard for the first time. I checked the leaves on our white oak (planted by the first owner of our house) and found some leaf galls. By then it had started to sprinkle, so I had to go back indoors. Within the hour we had a massive downpour with hail, while in Montpelier they had microbursts and lost power as well as trees. In the evening I tried a little mothing between the showers but it was cool and all I found were a few Diamesa flies.
3/27/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3166.1 miles total.
Category: animals
This afternoon we had some sun, but the temperature was barely above 40F. However, the snow in the yard has mostly melted, so I got to wander freely through the yard. I went on a hunt for beech midget leafminers but came up empty. I ended up searching the ground for leafminers on fallen leaves. I found Paraclemensia acerifoliella on sugar maple leaves and some Erineum mites on beech leaves. I also found chickadee, nuthatch, turkey, common redpoll and red squirrel. In the evening I did some mothing and found a Noctuid moth, no Diamesa flies.
3/28/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3166.2 miles total.
Category: animals
This afternoon was rainy and cool (40F) so I didn't find much during my walk, just a red squirrel and a chickadee. They probably wouldn't like to be termed "not much" but that's all I found. In the evening when I went out to check my moth light it had just stopped raining but it was still cool. Nothing out there, but I found a parson's spider on the kitchen floor.
Well, seeing as both squirrels and chickadees are often prey, they might well like to be thought of as "not much"!
Do you use a black light for moths?
3-25-21. Scherman Hoffman Sanctuary, Bernardsville, NJ. 1 mile today, 981.25 miles total
Category: everything
I went to this Audubon reserve as I'd seen several people had posted coltsfoot from here and I wanted to see some. It was easy to find, right along the driveway. I could hear wood frogs as I pulled up, but then they went silent as other people went and poked around in their pond. So I walked through the woods down to the river instead and found a different vernal pool where they were mating, including a whole orgy of 6 who kept right on doing what they were doing no matter how close I got.
This being an Audubon preserve I also photographed a hairy woodpecker, a whitethroated sparrow, a junco, and a robin. I saw my first water striders of the year, and a blooming hazel, and my biggest surprise, a Veratrum viride shoot.
2-26-21. Dock Watch Hollow, Warren, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 981.75 miles total
Category: everything.
I had a long day on duty today, with 4 hours at a house fire (no one hurt, but I'm still hoarse from breathing the smoke). But after dinner Molly, Katie and I went to "mess around" in the woods by the brook behind our house. I very unwisely wore flipflops and came home with scratched ankles. It had hit 80 degrees in the afternoon (at the fire) and now was still in the 70s and Molly wore her bathing suit and waded right into the creek. She found a dead pickerel frog. I spotted a honey ant. Katie showed me where the snow crocuses were (though just about done) and we also found daffodils way back there in the woods. And on the way back Katie spotted a mockingbird in our tree.
2-27-21. Lake Solitude and Arch St., High Bridge, NJ and Morristown Rd., Gillette, NJ. 1 mile today, 982.75 miles total
Category: everything.
Katie, Becca and I drove out to explore the dam area of Lake Solitude. It was mostly a huge mowed-grass earthen dam (with concrete where the spillway was) and a sparsely vegetated edge to the lake. And no porta-potty and Katie was desperate, so first we hiked up the wooded hill on the other side of the road where I was thrilled to find plantain leaved pussytoes, while making sure no one followed us up the trail. in the lake itself there were painted turtles sunning on a log. By the base of the spillway I found more coltsfoot. And Katie spotted a bluebird, thinking at first that it was a robin, until it turned around and flew off.
We drove home, but stopped on the way by a big, old, stone-arch railway bridge over both the road and the river. So I checked out the riverbanks. I found Ebony spleenwort in the bridge itself, some sweet cicely, poison hemlock, and nettles. And a sawfly as well.
Then we stopped at KFC to get a late lunch and I spotted jagged chickweed while waiting in the drive-through .
That night I stopped on the way home from a party at some railroad tracks in Gillette where I found cut-leaved teasel, musk thistle, and a red-winged blackbird.
2-28-21. Great Swamp, Meyersville, NJ. 1.25 miles today, 984 miles total.
Category: everything.
I walked at this swampy National Wildlife Reserve in the pouring rain. There were two volunteers greeting people (under a gazebo) when I arrived who told me I had the whole park to myself. This is a series of boardwalks, which is a good thing as the ground was very, very wet. Things I don't see often included buttonbush, swamp azalea, maleberry, the first trout lily leaves of the year, wild yam, stump puffballs, fetterbush, hooked buttercup, swamp rose with spiny galls, shadbush, and a running clubmoss I've never noticed here before.
It sounds like you are well into spring. Coltsfoot already! And daffodils...and a frog orgy. I haven't heard any wood frogs around here yet. As for Veratrum viride, that's what people around here call skunk cabbage. We don't have any proper skunk cabbage but folks will swear up and down that they see it in wet areas, but what they see is all Veratrum viride.
For my light set up, I have a work light with 2 very powerful LED bulbs going in one direction, and then a UV spotlight going at 90 degrees from the while LEDs. Some like it white, some like it purple.
3/29/21. CVS, Morrisville, VT. 0.2 miles today, 3166.4 miles total.
Category: wild
This afternoon my husband and I drove up to Morrisville for his vaccine appointment. It was our first time out of Washington County since December. The temperature was 40F with bright sun and a very stiff wind. I made a brisk walk around the parking lot of the drug store while I waited. The store is right along Route 15 in an industrial shopping area. There are a few landscaped trees and the property is meticulously groomed on 3 sides to make sure nothing wild grows there. But I managed to find a mullein, some galls on the planted oak trees, and on the back side of the property, a few unintentional plants (evening primrose, mugwort, sumac, grapes) and some ants.
3/30/21. Adamant, VT. 0.4 miles today, 3166.8 miles total.
Category: birds, arthropods, galls
This afternoon was sun but not quite as warm as promised, about 50F with a stiff breeze. I went down to Adamant in search of spring flowers that might have pollinators, but there were no spring bulbs planted in my usual gardens. I found some insects in the church yard, however, and some galls and birds across the street by Adamant Pond. I managed to walk too far and came home with a sore foot. Finds of the day included bog leafhopper, cluster flies, Philonthus rove beetle, lygus bug, fishing spider, and an ichneumon wasp that got blown off the church siding before I could get a clear shot. Birds were turkey vulture and American tree sparrow. I found galls on the swamp white oak in the church lawn, meadowsweet, willows by the pond, and honeysuckle.
In the evening I did some mothing on the porch. By then the wind had died down and the temperature was a little warmer. There were clouds of Diamesa flies, and also a half-wing, a Crambid moth, a straight-toothed sallow, and an Agonopterix moth.
That was such an annoying aspect of having injured my foot. I felt fine while I was walking and only when I stopped did I realize I'd overdone it. Well, that and sometimes I'd get out, start hurting, and realize I still had no choice but to walk back.
I hadn't thought about looking specifically for polinators on spring bulbs. There's a very pretty garden near me with lots of interesting plants, but all of them carefully groomed. I tend to avoid it as there's so little that's wild there, but I might go look for "bugs".
Yeah, our only hope of finding pollinators right now is on spring bulbs. Well worth searching around bulbs. Any maybe you'll find some ants in the grass.
3/31/21. Frizzle Mountain, Calais, VT. 0.1 miles today, 3166.9 miles total.
Categories: animals, phenology
This afternoon was overcast and about 50F when I went out. We have a few snow drops in the yard that are finally open, but without sun, there were no pollinators. I had good luck in the compost, however. I found an ant, some cluster flies, maybe a lesser dung fly, and some other fly. I also found a chickadee and got scolded by a red squirrel in our driveway. The hazelnut has not opened yet, but I managed to find a pine tube moth shelter in the yard. In the evening, I found 4 moths at the light (it had warmed up) despite steady rain, and also clouds of Diamesa flies.
3-29-21. Arbor Way, Martinsville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 984.25 miles total
Category: blooming, budding, new
A busy day with squad duty today, so I parked at this little-used entrance to the local park and walked just 4 minutes' distance into the woods (in case I got called). Blooming were only Vinca and a slippery elm. Buds breaking were rose, privet, burning bush, barberry, blackhaw. And spring beauty leaves (with spring beauty rust) were showing, if no flowers yet, as well as narrow-leaved bittercress, cleavers, and kidney-leaved butttercup.
3-30-21. Washington Valley Park, Martinsville and Cooper Mill, Chester, NJ 1.75 miles today, 986 miles total
Category: blooming, buds breaking, newly sprouted, arthropods
In the morning I went to the local ravine to look for blooming ephemerals. The trout lily are leaving out. Ramps are up. Blooming were elm, spring beauty, lesser celandine. no sign yet of dutchman's breeches, toothwort, or even hepatica (but the hepatica is hard to find even when in full bloom).
The afternoon was beautiful, and Chuck, Molly, Becca, and Katie all went walking with me at this historic mill. (my son, Carl, had just gotten home from driving cross country, so declined to come). We poked around the mill and pond then everyone else walked about 2 miles down the trail here and back while I photographed in more detail.
Blooming were red maple, spicebush, skunk cabbage, vinca, and bittercress. Buds breaking were honeysuckle, barberry, blueberry, and rose. Newly emerging was cleavers, jewelweed, trout lily, hooked buttercup, and yellowcress. Critters included hemlock scale, nesting Canada geese, and a swarm of midges, plus a mosquito that bit me (first of the year), and a dog tick I didn't discover until I got home (but while it was still walking around). And I was also excited about greater celandine, ebony spleenwort, and what I think was a fragile fern.
Well done guys. I enjoyed reading all these posts.
3-31-21 Dock Watch Hollow Rd., Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 986.25 miles total
Category: changing
It was a rainy, gloomy day and I didn't feel particularly up to trudging through it. I parked and walked here, mostly to see if there was any sign yet of bloodroot (not surprisingly: no). Black medic and cleavers have sprouted, roses, honeysuckle, autumn olive, raspberry, barberry, and privet are leafing out. Pear is just breaking bud.
Wow--spring beauty blooming already! Sounds like spring! And vinca...I wonder if pollinators ever visit vinca. Charley Eisemann says vinca is not popular with leaf miners. Does it support any insect life at all?
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