Trails
- A mourning cloak greeted me in the Gifford House parking lot.
- Crypticly marked below, it can dissapear against leaves or bark.
- Prickly pear was blooming along the edge and bee-balm was against the building.
- In the Old Hayfield, I could almost see myself in the glossy back of the dogbane beetle.
- A pair of wasps rested on a goldenrod leaf.
- A common wood-nymph posed perfectly for me...
- As did a spectacular coral hairstreak on yarrow.
- One of my favorite day-flying moths, the spotted thyris, nectared on a daisy.
- Another, frequently found on yarrow, is the plume moth, of which there are several.
- The Wappinger Creek Trail sported a host of mushrooms: pink topped, bumpy, in congregations, and looking like a jaunty, pink pom pom.
- Near the entrance to the Fern Glen was creeping bellflower.
- Closer to the water was fringed loosestrife.
- Twinleaf had already popped its seeds.
- The peculiar flower of horse balm has a pleasant lemon scent.
- One has to look for the tiny enchanter's nightshade.
- I had enough mushrooms already, but I couldn't resist one more.
- As I went through the Old Gravel Pit I could hear the yellow-billed cuckoo from last week. Abruptly, it flew into view. It was a black-billed singing like a yellow-billed!
- Working in the Glen the next day, I found a soggy bloated moth crawling around the rocks: it had just emerged from it's pupa! With a little peace and quiet and some elbow room to hang, it soon had its wings inflated and dried.
- It was the straight-lined looper moth.
- Its caterpillar feeds on meadow-rue, which is abundant here.
Butterflies
- 8 Cabbage White
- 2 Orange Sulphur
- 2 American Copper
- 2 Coral Hairstreak
- 1 Banded Hairstreak
- 10 Great Spangled Fritillary
- 3 Eastern Comma
- 2 Mourning Cloak
- 3 Appalachian Brown
- 6 Little Wood-Satyr
- 70 Common Wood-Nymph
- 1 Monarch
- 13 Silver-spotted Skipper
- 6 European Skipper
- 5 Northern Broken-Dash
- 1 Delaware Skipper
- 6 Dun Skipper
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Birds
- 1 Turkey Vulture
- 2 Mourning Dove
- 1 Black-billed Cuckoo
- 1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird
- 3 Downy Woodpecker
- 2 Eastern Wood-Pewee
- 2 Eastern Phoebe
- 11 Red-eyed Vireo
- 5 Blue Jay
- 2 American Crow
- 13 Black-capped Chickadee
- 4 Tufted Titmouse
- 3 White-breasted Nuthatch
- 2 House Wren
- 1 Winter Wren
- 1 Eastern Bluebird
- 7 Veery
- 2 Wood Thrush
- 9 American Robin
- 3 Gray Catbird
- 1 Northern Mockingbird
- 3 Prairie Warbler
- 3 Ovenbird
- 1 Common Yellowthroat
- 2 Scarlet Tanager
- 4 Eastern Towhee
- 2 Chipping Sparrow
- 4 Field Sparrow
- 3 Song Sparrow
- 1 Northern Cardinal
- 1 Indigo Bunting
- 1 Red-winged Blackbird
- 1 Brown-headed Cowbird
- 1 House Finch
- 1 American Goldfinch
- 1 House Sparrow
Moths
- 2 Nessus Sphinx
- 1 Plume moth
- 3 Virginia Ctenucha
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