On the Trails of IES

The Trails

• As I entered the Sedge Meadow Trail last week, I grumbled at again forgetting my pruning shears.
• Oh oh... What's that gray blob on that branch - a hornet's nest? No, the often heard, but seldom seen Gray Treefrog!
• This week's surprise awaited me on the Cary Pines Trail: A hen turkey and a dozen chicks were sitting right in the path but hidden around a bend; we all went up into the air!
• Some picnic plate size mushrooms were placidly growing farther along the trail.
• Only to be out done by what I take to be one of the slime molds.
• American Carrion Beetles were busy in the Old Hayfields.
• Goat's beard had come and gone.
• This would have been a nice end of the trail view, but I was parked in the Fern Glen today.

In the Fern Glen

• In the fen, sheep laurel was still in bloom.
• Late afternoon shadows were slowing down the insect life - well, some of it... like the European Skipper.
• It even allowed a portrait. It almost appeared to have eye lashes.
• I was slowing down too, so I left.

Butterflies

• 2 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
• 8 Cabbage White
• 7 American Copper
• 36 Little Wood-Satyr
• 16 Common Ringlet
• 2 Least Skipper
• 74 European Skipper
• 1 Peck's Skipper
• 1 Tawny-edged Skipper
• 2 Crossline Skipper
• 1 Hobomok Skipper

Birds

• 6 Wild Turkey
• 1 Mourning Dove
• 1 Belted Kingfisher
• 1 Pileated Woodpecker
• 1 Eastern Wood-Pewee
• 2 Eastern Phoebe
• 3 Red-eyed Vireo
• 2 Blue Jay
• 5 American Crow
• 1 Black-capped Chickadee
• 1 White-breasted Nuthatch
• 1 Veery
• 1 Wood Thrush
• 6 American Robin
• 5 Gray Catbird
• 2 Cedar Waxwing
• 2 Blue-winged Warbler
• 1 Yellow Warbler
• 2 Prairie Warbler
• 1 Black-and-white Warbler
• 2 Ovenbird
• 1 Louisiana Waterthrush
• 1 Common Yellowthroat
• 2 Scarlet Tanager
• 1 Eastern Towhee
• 3 Chipping Sparrow
• 2 Field Sparrow
• 1 Song Sparrow
• 3 Northern Cardinal
• 2 Indigo Bunting
• 1 Baltimore Oriole
• 5 American Goldfinch

Moths

• 1 Hummingbird Clearwing
• 1 Snowberry Clearwing