On the Trails of IES

The Trails

• Last week, a red eft graced the Cary Pines Trail.
• And it was only when I gave up and walked away that a red-spotted purple stopped playing hard to get and landed right in front of me on the Carriage House drive.
• It even allowed a photo of it's underside.
• Back to this week, the lotus bud was the focus in water garden at Gifford House.
• The blackberry lily is a favorite of mine.
• A northern pearly-eye caught my eye as it set down in the tall grass, but it was it's peculiar posture that held my attention.
• It looked like it was laying a egg, but they usually fly right away. Then I flipped over the blade of grass...
• In the Old Gravel Pit, I came upon a great number of dogwood sawfly larvae.
• They look alot like caterpillars, but they have more than the usual 4 pair of abdominal prolegs.
• Just finishing up in the Scotch Pine Alleé, I was able to watch - but not quite photo - two American goldfinch, one feeding the other.
• And on my way out through the Gifford Garden, I could hear and barely see a rose-breasted grosbeak family in the oak above.

In the Fern Glen

• The fragrant lizard's tail was blooming at the pond's edge.
• Culver's root was host to all kinds of insect activity.
• The roadside meadow seemed a strange place to find ebony spleenwort, but I almost recall it from last year.

Moths

• 1 Snowberry Clearwing

Birds

• 2 Red-tailed Hawk
• 1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird
• 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
• 1 Eastern Wood-Pewee
• 1 Blue Jay
• 3 Black-capped Chickadee
• 1 Tufted Titmouse
• 1 Wood Thrush
• 13 American Robin
• 8 Gray Catbird
• 1 Cedar Waxwing
• 2 Scarlet Tanager
• 4 Eastern Towhee
• 2 Chipping Sparrow
• 2 Field Sparrow
• 1 Song Sparrow
• 2 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
• 1 Red-winged Blackbird
• 6 American Goldfinch

Butterflies

• 4 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
• 1 Spicebush Swallowtail
• 35 Cabbage White
• 4 Clouded Sulphur
• 6 Orange Sulphur
• 10 American Copper
• 2 Eastern Tailed-Blue
• 12 Great Spangled Fritillary
• 10 Pearl Crescent
• 1 Question Mark
• 1 Eastern Comma
• 2 Red Admiral
• 1 Red-spotted Purple
• 1 Northern Pearly-eye
• 8 Appalachian Brown
• 1 Common Ringlet
• 26 Common Wood-Nymph
• 6 Monarch
• 1 Silver-spotted Skipper
• 2 Northern Broken-Dash
• 1 Delaware Skipper
• 16 Dun Skipper