On the Trails of IES

Trail Report for Sept 20, 2006

60°F, mostly cloudy, and calm at 1:00 PM.
A great day for mushrooms.
A bit cool and cloudy for butterflies, but whenever the sun peeked out the BFs would rise from the grass.

Gifford Gardens were taking on fall colors - even if these were tropicals.
A song sparrow was feasting on ornimental millet.
Goldenrods were rising through the old farm equipment in front of the Old Hayfields.
A white patch in the grass proved to be a cabbage white butterfly, but its unnatural posture proved to be the result of an ambush bug, hidden below it.
The "lights were turning on" at my favorite view from the Wappinger Creek Trail after the Old Pasture.
Beautiful fungus with a touch of lichen adorned a fallen log.
Now ripe were the puffballs that I saw last week.
A striking caterpillar was having lunch on false nettle at the "Appendix". It was of the eastern comma butterfly, although its posture suggested its relative, the question mark...
This week I challenged myself to photo fungi but without mushrooms; this was about the farthest from a mushroom that I've ever encountered.
But if these are indeed young witches butter, they will be a close second.
Coral fungus makes a great runner up.
A huge owl passed silently through at the bottom of the Old Gravel Pit. It was the same place as a year or so ago.

Black cohosh is peculiar among even the more familiar inhabitants of our planet, especially close up.
Cinnamon ferns were turning toasty golden in the poor fen.
Male berry and spicebush berries were screaming.
Meanwhile, witch hazel blossomed unobtrusively nearby.
And in a farther corner a rather bulbous blister beetle was quite comfortable dining supine.