Last Week
- Clear skies and 70 degrees made for a pleasant early autumn afternoon in the front Old Hayfield.
- An eastern comma came around from behind and dove into shrub against the pump house.
- It came out of the bush and clamped onto the wall looking like a sundial's gnomon.
- Patience was rewarded with a fine view of its fall color form as it basked in typical head down posture.
- As I continued on my way, something large and green dove into the high grass before me. A slow approach revealed a well camouflaged katydid.
- In the back Old Hayfield, an American copper posed for me.
- A different kind of buzz made me pause (the fields were full of goldenrods and they were full of bees and wasps). It seemed more cautious than aggressive and didn't act like a deer/horse fly. I gave it clearance for landing on my left arm and got the photo with the right: a most peculiar bee fly - Lepidophora lepidocera, I presume, which I encountered in similar circumstances in 2004 at this same time of year.
- On to the Fern Glen to find black cohosh or bugbane. Not as startling, but almost as peculiar as the previous bug, these blossoms loose their petals to leave bursts of stamens.
This Week
- 70s again, but cloudy skies meant few butterflies today. Regardless, the Little Bluestem Meadow was pleasant to behold.
- As the trail made its way into the Old Gravel Pit, I noticed a lump on a twig. It was last season's egg mass of the eastern tent caterpillar.
- I always examine the little meadow above the Fern Glen. A skipper was soaking up the little sun that had come out. I knew it was one of two...
- Patience triumphed again when I finally got a view of the hind wing below - that big yellow patch made it the zabulon skipper. Another tour of the field guides and I may be getting a handle on separating it from the hobomok skipper by features from above.
- I was saddened to see the withered remains of rose twisted-stalk whose brilliant red berries graced these reports just a few weeks ago. It appears that someone dug it up and took half. Intolerance to disturbance and slow growth to maturation (this was started from seed 7 years ago) are some of the traits that can contribute to a plant being classified as "exploitably vulnerable". Taking (some) seeds or cuttings is preferred to digging plants in the wild.
- The fruit of flowering raspberry was still aplenty farther along the path.
- Another unusual, albeit more common, insect landed next to me as I clicked on the raspberry: the (harmless) scorpion fly.
- Bur marigold was flowering in the fen. Looking into the blossom one can recognize the beginnings of the better known seeds: sticktights.
- On the other side of the boardwalk, a milkweed tussock moth caterpillar was feeding on swamp milkweed.
- A pretty big mushroom was lurking off the side of the path as I was leaving the Glen.
- Out on the Wappinger Creek Trail, a pack of chickadees crossed my path. Scanning the group turned up a downy woodpecker and several American redstarts. Nice.
- Down on the Sedge Meadow Trail, that Virginia knotweed or jumpseed was beginning to develop those seeds that really do jump when you brush them.
- All around, white snakeroot was beginning to go to seed - they don't jump, they fly.
- Walking along the back Old Hayfield, I noticed another lump: a fly apparently packing it in for the day. On the other hand, only in examining the photo did I notice the strands of what appear to be spider silk which may indicate that the fly itself had been packed away.
- A clover looper moth was taking nectar from wild bergamot. They are said to be active at night and day both. I wondered when they sleep.
- It was on dogbane that another kind of bee fly chose to spend the evening. Another angle showed the interesting segmentation of the abdomen.
- And a goldenrod was the resting place this lightning bug relative chose at the edge of the field.
- In the front Old Hayfield, a great spangled fritillary was absorbing the afternoon photons.
- A flock of birds passed through the cherries and cedars above the Sedge Meadow. Among them were American redstarts and a black-throated green warbler that was close enough to get a photo. Unfortunately, it was blurred too much to subject this audience to. One accidental shutter release, however, resulted in, if I dare say, an abstract - perhaps impressionistic - sort of image that I find interesting enough to include as a closing shot today.
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Birds
- 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
- 1 Downy Woodpecker
- 1 Red-eyed Vireo
- 6 Blue Jay
- 3 American Crow
- 15 Black-capped Chickadee
- 1 White-breasted Nuthatch
- 4 House Wren
- 1 American Robin
- 4 Gray Catbird
- 1 Cedar Waxwing
- 5 American Redstart
- 3 Eastern Towhee
- 5 Chipping Sparrow
- 1 Song Sparrow
- 2 American Goldfinch
Butterflies
- 1 Cabbage White
- 2 Clouded Sulphur
- 1 Orange Sulphur
- 4 Great Spangled Fritillary
- 1 Zabulon Skipper
Moths
Plants
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