On the Trails of IES

Trail Report for June 28, 2006

80°F, mostly cloudy, and calm at 2:30 PM.
It had rained all morning; I almost didn't come, but I did and it was a great day.
The European skipper is still abundant.
A number of other butterflies have appeared; check the milkweed which is starting to bloom.

I started at the 'Glen today and parked next to a turtle.
It was a snapping turtle and there was a lump on the shell by the left hind leg.
Leeches. And I would guess they were mating.
A couple days ago, as I headed onto the path, movement at the left of the trail caught my eye.
I would like to have seen how this silly frog got up onto the bannister.
Then I noticed the black swallowtail caterpillar on golden alexanders; today there were two.
Continuing along the back of the Glen I found the thornless purple-flowering raspberry. The deer like this, as the stump of a leaf attests.
On the approach to the fen, red baneberry was finally obvious.
The fen itself had recently acquired some new plantings.
Black caps, another raspberry, were ripening right on schedule in the meadow up the road from the Glen.

Red efts were out along the Cary Pines Trail as I headed from the Glen towards post #12.
Along the Wappinger Creek Trail wood nettle was flowering.
They taunted me in the Glen and in the Sedge Meadow, but finally one sat down and allowed a good look: the Appalachian brown.
Great spangled fritillaries were in good numbers anywhere there was milkweed.
A dogfight of banded hairstreaks spiraled up from the path in Gifford Garden as I walked by.
And just as I was leaving for the day, a Compton tortoiseshell erupted from under foot and landed on the wall.