On the Trails of
The Cary Institute

Trail Report for June 25, 2008

Notes and changes since last report:

Let's Walk

The Trails

  • First stop was the milkweed in Gifford parking lot. A banded hairstreak was the prize. Note the bee coming in for a landing!
  • Behind Gifford house, prickly-pear cactus was blooming.
  • The floor of the Scots Pine Alle&eaccute; was alive with some kind of little bee. Dozens - perhaps hundreds - were milling about an inch or so above the floor.
  • The meadow above the Fern Glen held the fragrant, but invasive, Japanese honesuckle.
  • By the pond I watched a Spicebush swallowtail zoom in for a landing on dung. It was still there 2 hrs later when I left the Glen.
  • Purple-flowered raspberry, a thornless raspberry, was blooming near the fens.
  • In the poor fen, sheep laurel was still blooming - it had started last week.
  • Elderberry, too has been blooming for a while.
  • Past blooming, indeed now setting seed, Red baneberry was finally easy to tell from white baneberry.
  • Out on the Wappinger Creek Trail, shinleaf was about to bloom.
  • I'd been hearing a young Red-tailed hawk squawking all morning. Above the Old Hayfield, an adult was being harassed by red-winged blackbirds.
  • Way in the back of the farther of the two Hayfields was a lone foxglove blooming.
  • Preparing the close up for this report, I noticed a pair of thin black lines on the upper lip of a large blossom.
  • Zooming in revealed them to be the hind legs of a tiny grasshopper-like resident.
  • Every once in a while the back of the Old Hayfield has something unique and interesting.

Butterflies

  • 1 Spicebush Swallowtail
  • 6 Cabbage White
  • 2 Clouded Sulphur
  • 1 Banded Hairstreak
  • 17 Great Spangled Fritillary
  • 1 Eastern Comma
  • 1 Red Admiral
  • 5 Little Wood-Satyr
  • 3 Common Ringlet
  • 1 Monarch
  • 4 Silver-spotted Skipper
  • 32 European Skipper
  • 1 Hobomok Skipper

Birds

  • 2 Red-tailed Hawk
  • 2 Mourning Dove
  • 1 Chimney Swift
  • 2 Pileated Woodpecker
  • 1 Eastern Wood-Pewee
  • 2 Eastern Phoebe
  • 1 Warbling Vireo
  • 2 Red-eyed Vireo
  • 4 Blue Jay
  • 2 Tree Swallow
  • 3 Black-capped Chickadee
  • 1 White-breasted Nuthatch
  • 1 Brown Creeper
  • 1 House Wren
  • 1 Winter Wren
  • 2 Veery
  • 8 American Robin
  • 7 Gray Catbird
  • 1 European Starling
  • 4 Cedar Waxwing
  • 1 Yellow Warbler
  • 3 Prairie Warbler
  • 4 Ovenbird
  • 1 Louisiana Waterthrush
  • 2 Scarlet Tanager
  • 4 Eastern Towhee
  • 1 Chipping Sparrow
  • 2 Field Sparrow
  • 2 Song Sparrow
  • 2 Red-winged Blackbird
  • 3 Brown-headed Cowbird
  • 1 American Goldfinch

Plants

  • 1 Foxglove
  • 1 Japanese Honeysuckle
  • 1 Purple-flowering Raspberry

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© 2008 Barry Haydasz