The Trails
- A chukar - an escaped gamebird - has been making home of the area around Gifford House. Look for a gaudy bobwhite.
- A new visitor information kiosk was being installed at Gifford parking lot.
- Skunk cabbage was unfurling leaves along the Sedge Meadow Trail's boardwalk.
- The new trail markers are color coded, e.g., orange for Sedge Meadow Trail. See the new trail map.
- The Old Pasture is interesting, but the walk through is always too short. A bench invites one to linger.
- It's been a while since I've seen my favorite view from the bluff on the Wappinger Creek Trail.
- At the bottom of the trail, I spotted the spotted leaves of dogtooth violet, or trout lily if you prefer.
- Not much farther ahead some were even blooming.
- Our favorite invasives to hate were starting to leaf out: Japanese barberry and the bush honesuckles.
- Ah, a bench at my favorite spot which I like to call the "Appendix" - the area around trail marker 10.
- I wondered if I would find an Eastern comma on Cary Pines Trail. I did. Two in fact. Look for them in patches of sun. If they fly away, relax a moment - they will be back.
- After a stop in the Fern Glen, I continued on Cary Pines toward the Old Gravel Pit and found two more commas in a typical posture clinging head down on the sunny side of a tree trunk.
- The bottom of the Old Gravel Pit was still flooded. There is now a detour around it.
- Back behind the Carriage House, the large shrub that I can't name was a ball of yellow. Five brothers?
- A very nice first walk of the season.
In the Fern Glen
- The little meadow above the Fern Glen is a good spot for butterflies. The one cabbage white of the day was there.
- The maple by the Fern Glen pond was in blossom - a favorite spring time sight.
- At the pond's dam was a heap of marsh-marigold in bloom.
- In the fen, colt's foot were popping up here and there.
- Hepatica in white, pink, blue and almost violet were errupting from the limestone cobble.
- Nearby, Dutchman's breeches were dangling in the sun.
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Birds
- 1 Wild Turkey
- 1 Mourning Dove
- 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
- 1 Downy Woodpecker
- 1 Northern Flicker
- 1 Pileated Woodpecker
- 2 Eastern Phoebe
- 4 American Crow
- 9 Black-capped Chickadee
- 1 Tufted Titmouse
- 1 White-breasted Nuthatch
- 1 Carolina Wren
- 1 Eastern Bluebird
- 1 Hermit Thrush
- 4 American Robin
- 1 Chipping Sparrow
- 1 Field Sparrow
- 1 Song Sparrow
- 1 Dark-eyed Junco
- 1 Red-winged Blackbird
Butterflies
- 1 Cabbage White
- 2 Spring Azure
- 4 Eastern Comma
Plants
- 1 Colt's Foot
- 2 Dogtooth violet
- 1 Hepatica
- 1 Marsh Marigold
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