Hidden Treasure in a Mountain Swamp

Who would have known they were there, hidden away for ages, those big old Black Tupelos in a swamp on the top of a mountain?  Only someone who knows the Palmertown Mountains of Moreau Lake State Park like the back of her hand, that's who.  Someone like my friend Laurie, who led me up into the mountains yesterday so that I could lay my eyes on these trees myself.

Laurie counts these mountains and woods as her own backyard and has been hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing here for years and years, both on and off the trails.  But even she was surprised when she came upon these towering trees in a hidden swamp, recognizing right away they were something special.  She also knows that I have a special fondness for Black Tupelos and was quick to report her find to me and offer to take me to see them.  So off we went together, along with Laurie's teenaged daughter Johanna, on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.  We followed a well-marked trail for a mile or so, until we came to the spot where Laurie knew we should leave the trail and follow a ridge downhill to a swamp that lies in a hollow of the mountain.

Laurie and Johanna led the way, assuring me that I wouldn't get lost if I just followed the ridge.

We soon came to a swampy area, which, lucky for us, was sufficiently frozen over to allow for easy exploring.

Mats of sphagnum moss lay thick around the edges of ice-covered pools.

In many of these pools, the ice had formed lovely patterns as it froze.  And refroze and refroze and refroze.

We found a number of baby Black Spruces, typical occupants, along with the sphagnum, of boggy sites.

And there they were,  the Black Tupelos, tall and straight, towering over their neighboring trees in the swamp.  Not as monumental as some 800-year-old tupelos I have visited in a lowland swamp nearby, but much larger than the tupelos I have seen growing along the Hudson River at Moreau.  We measured the trunks of two of them at shoulder height and determined that they were about six feet around. To determine their age, they would have to be core-sampled.  It sure would be interesting to know how old they really are.

Here's a view looking up toward the crown, revealing the horizontal branching and distinctive twigginess so typical of this species.

Also typical of tupelos of this size is the way the bark grows:  deeply furrowed on one side, but relatively smooth on the other.

We even found some leaves and seeds, which provide further evidence for this tree's identification.

So, what is it about this tree (Nyssa sylvatica is its Latin name) that I would consider it a treasure?  Certainly, lumbermen have no use for it, with its interlacing fibers that make it impossible to split and prone to warping.  For this very reason, no doubt, this tree was allowed to stand through the centuries while all others around it were lumbered again and again, so that by now the oldest stands of living timber in the northeast are likely to be Black Tupelo.  And that's very interesting.  It's also a beautiful tree, with glossy green leaves that turn a spectacular cranberry red each autumn, as well as a rather uncommon tree for this part of the world.  Considered more of a coastal species, Black Tupelos survive in the Hudson/Champlain Valley because of a moderating effect those bodies of water have on the regional climate.  So this tree is not seen around here all that often.  I had never seen its like when I first encountered it while paddling the Hudson some 15-20 years ago, and my desire to discover its identity inspired my desire to then learn the name of everything that grows along the river.  And then, everything that grows, everywhere!

So that's why I felt it was worth the effort to climb up a mountain and push through a swamp to see another stand of these amazing trees -- especially ones as old and large as those we found up there.  Thanks, Laurie, for sharing your find with me.  What a treasure!

Chasing Upstream After Eagles

When my friend Sue and I agreed to meet today at Moreau Lake State Park, we didn't know where we might hike.  All we knew was that it was a gorgeous day and we wanted to be outside under that perfectly clear, radiant blue sky, preferably on a trail in the park.  But after we got talking with park staffers and heard reports of eagles feeding on a deer carcass up near Hadley on Stewart's Pond, that's where we headed instead. 

We hadn't even left the park, though, speeding along the Hudson River on Spiers Falls Road, when Sue called out, "There's an eagle on that island!"   Of course, we pulled over to get a good look.  Can you see it, perched in a tree out there?

Here's a little closer look, thanks to my camera's zoom.  Not a very clear shot, but at least you can tell it's an eagle.  We tried to sneak a little closer, but the eagle took flight and disappeared downstream.

So we continued on our way north, finding the Hudson again at Corinth and following the river upstream to Hadley, where the Hudson meets the Sacandaga River.  We then followed the Sacandaga upstream to Stewart's Pond, where, sure enough, we saw that deer carcass out on the ice.  No eagles were feasting on it, though.  Breakfast must have been over.

We got out of the car and walked the length of the Stewart's Pond Dam, a massive earthen dam set among truly stunning scenery of river, forest,  and mountains.  We were hoping to catch another glimpse of the rollicking cloud of Snow Buntings our passing had scared up from the grass, but somehow they'd managed to disappear completely.  We couldn't miss the large raven that flew right over our heads, fanning its wedge-shaped tail and croaking its greeting, and then Sue's eagle eyes saw another large dark bird soaring above the distant tree line -- a large dark bird with snow-white head and tail, our second eagle sighting of the morning!

Our next stop was a few miles further upstream to another large dam at Conklinville, above which the vast Sacandaga Reservoir extends for miles, rimmed by conifer forests and rugged mountains.   We never saw any more eagles here, but that didn't stop our spirits from soaring.  Who wouldn't feel uplifted, surrounded by such natural splendor?

Sue works afternoons, so as midday approached we headed home, stopping in Lake Luzerne to have lunch at the Waterhouse Restaurant. (Very good!)  We got chatting with the restaurant owner, who, when he learned what we'd been up to, told us of many eagle sightings along the Hudson north of Lake Luzerne.  Sue and I looked at each other and grinned.  We didn't even need to say it:  There was our next adventure!

Balmy Air, Icy Trails

Nearly 60 degrees today.  Bright blue sky.  Nice day for a hike, right?  Yeah, but only with Yaktrax or microspikes on your boots.  I thought a walk around Mud Pond at Moreau Lake State Park would be a nice easy way to get my hiking legs back, after a week away from my home woods and mountains.  But just a few steps from my car had me grabbing at tree trunks to keep myself upright.  So back I teetered to get myYaktrax out of the trunk.  Then, the walking was easy, even on the packed icy trail that circles the pond.  

 Mud Pond was still frozen, despite many days of warm temperatures, but a layer of water turned its surface into a mirror, reflecting the sun-warmed, tree-lined shore and a lovely, puffy-cloud azure sky.

These ruffly tree fungi reiterated the blue color-theme today.   With a minutely pored undersurface and alternating hairy and smooth multicolored stripes, this fungus resembles the bracket fungus called Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor), but I have never seen any Turkey Tail colored this blue.  Pretty!
 

Even the moon looked translucently blue today, as if that deep-blue sky were showing through.

Westchester Wanderings

It's only been a week since I last sat down to post a blog, but somehow it seems much longer than that, since I spent very little of the last week in the woods.  I was down in Mt. Kisco in Westchester County looking after my granddaughters while their folks were away.  The girls are no trouble at all to care for and lots of fun to be with, but their interests sure don't lie in accompanying Grandma on nature adventures.  I did manage to get out one day by myself to visit the wonderful Teatown Reservation, a nature preserve and education center in nearby Ossining.  I love to take the trail that circles the lake that lies at the heart of the preserve, and I had a beautiful blue-sky day to do it in.

At one point, the trail passes over a very long footbridge that provides beautiful views of the lake, which was mostly covered with a thin sheet of ice.   I walked this trail just a year ago, when several feet of snow covered the woods, and the ice was thick enough to support the wanderings of deer across its surface.  They would not have been able to do that today.  (To compare the amount of snow this year to last at Teatown, click here.)

The terrain surrounding the lake is rugged and rocky, with many outcroppings studded with glassy patches of quartzite.

Wherever the lake lay unfrozen, various waterfowl swam about in the open water, including this pair of elegant swans.

Because of an overabundance of deer in Westchester County, most of the woods, although lush and green, are bereft of native species of plants, supporting only those invasive plants that deer avoid.  A number of nature preserves in the county are fencing off portions of their acreage to keep out the deer,  allowing the native plants to be reestablished.  At Teatown, this process is being actively managed, with removal of alien species and the planting of native shrubs and trees and wildflowers.  This rustic gate marks one entry into such a fenced-off exclosure.  I look forward to revisiting this area during the growing season to see what native plants have come into flower.

One of my favorite features of Teatown is the exhibits of native birds and mammals, especially the enclosures containing raptors and owls and other birds of prey, all of them having been rehabilitated following serious injury but too permanently damaged to be returned to the wild.  Here, one of the caregivers, Lisa, enters the enclosure of an American Kestrel to offer it shreds of meat.

 

Which the kestrel eagerly devours.  I think I would enjoy this job!

In a nearby enclosure, a Red-tailed Hawk hunches over to enjoy its lunch of rat.  How lovely to get such a good view of the ruddy tail that gives this large raptor its name.  We usually can only see this bird from underneath, as it soars above us, high in the sky.

Inside the nature center are tanks and terraria housing a number of amphibians, snakes, and turtles, including this rare Blandings Turtle that came close enough to let me see its yellow chin and throat, and the distinctive black and white mottling of its shell. 

An informative sign near the turtle's pool stated that this turtle is found in New York only in Dutchess County, but I was able to leave a message for Teatown naturalists, informing them that this rare turtle has also been found at the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, right here in Saratoga County.  Where I am again very happily at home, eager to get back to my own Saratoga County woods and waters.

Beautiful Barks Along Bog Meadow

 Well, so much for our soft white snow.  Yesterday's all-day rain and today's high temperatures have destroyed all the snow and turned all the trails to wet mud by this afternoon.  Luckily, I did get out for a walk yesterday, despite a constant drizzle, choosing the Bog Meadow Nature Trail just outside Saratoga.  As this photo shows, Bog Meadow Trail is long and straight, and if one wants to walk quickly for exercise, this is a good place to do it -- especially when the trail's underlying railroad ties are thickly padded with a blanket of snow.  Even soggy wet snow.  I wore my waterproof boots.

I expected I would swing briskly along, work up a little healthy sweat, since there's not much to see in the woods this time of year, right?   Ah well, best laid plans and all that.  As it happened, the steady drizzle had dampened the tree trunks and darkened the bark, so that all the marvelous colors and patterns of lichenous growths on those trunks were more evident than usual.  Of course, I had to stop and admire the many variations. 


Some growths were a soft velvety green, with patches outlined in baby blue.

Others were speckled like the sides of a trout, with varying shades of pale green.

Or shades of blue.

Or bright emerald green traced with squiggles of rich brown.

This pale-blue patch was adorned with tiny black wormy shapes.

The base of one tree was speckled with large blue flakes.

This branch was covered with circles of both blue and green.

 During my walk, I focused my attention on only the flat crustose lichens, for the moment ignoring the frilly foliose lichens, as well as the many mosses that decorated the trees.  This abundant fluffy growth at the base of a tree did cause me to pause, however, and take a closer look.  Is this a moss, I wondered, or could it be a liverwort?

My eyesight is too compromised to distinguish moss from liverwort with my naked eyes, but a macro shot with my camera revealed the overlapping leaves of one of the liverworts in the genus Porella.

Stopping and starting along the trail as I did, I did not work up much of a sweat.  But I was out there long enough to get drenched by the constant drizzle that, after a while, set all the twigs to dripping.  Not wanting to risk wetting my camera, I packed it away and headed home, wondering how many exquisite variations on a theme of lichens I had missed.

Fun in the Snow at Kawing Crow

 Fresh snow, a fun group of nature lovers, and a fine teacher of nature awareness -- all added up to a great way to spend a cold winter's day today.  Thanks to sponsorship by the Southern Adirondack Audubon Society, a group of about 15 of us braved snow-slicked roads this morning to attend a workshop conducted by noted naturalist Vince Walsh at his Kawing Crow Awareness Center in Greenfield.  Cozying up to a roaring woodstove and surrounded by mounted specimens representing Vince's many years of wildlife experiences, we spent the morning listening to Vince help us understand the minds and motivations of the creatures that live in the wild around us.

After immersing ourselves in the lore of many woodland animals and then fueling up on lunch, we donned our cold-weather gear for further adventures outdoors, exploring the woods and marsh that surround  the Kawing Crow center.

We hadn't gone more than a few steps from the door when we found our first set of tracks in the fresh snow, which provided many lessons in how to determine the size, direction, and speed of the animal that made them.  We continued through the woods and came upon many other tracks,  allowing us to put our new knowledge into practice.  Vince is an extraordinarily engaging and enthusiastic teacher, encouraging our questions and turning even our mistaken guesses into opportunities for learning.  This was at least the fourth workshop of Vince's I have attended, and I always learn something new and have a wonderful time.

A fine snow continued to fall during our afternoon's explorations, frosting the trees and adding to the beauty of the landscape.  

Vince's baby daughter, here pulled by her mother Erica, joined us for for the morning's education as well as for part of our woodland adventures.  What a lucky little girl, to grow up so surrounded by nature's wonders and nurtured in its lore!  Doesn't she look happy to be outdoors?

Cold and Snowy -- Hurray!

Two clear cold, blue-sky, bright-sunny days in a row!  And with some nice fluffy snow in between.  Hurray!  As long as we have to have winter, we might as well have some real WINTER!  Happily for me, I was able to get out and enjoy it, both yesterday and today.  Yesterday, inspired by reports of eagles feeding along the Hudson at Ft. Edward, I headed over to Washington County to follow the river roads through Ft. Miller to Ft. Edward.  Well, I didn't see any eagles, but I sure saw lots of geese.  Wherever there was any open water, there were hordes and hordes of geese that never went south for the winter. 

But hey, what's that snowy-white fowl out there in the middle of that flock of geese?   Looks like a barnyard goose has come out to visit his Canadian cousins.  Or could that be a Snow Goose?  I can't see its tail feathers, which would be black on a Snow Goose.  Usually, Snow Geese gather in large flocks along this stretch of the Hudson.  Do they typically mingle with the Canadas?

Today was even sunnier than yesterday, and what a dazzling sight it was, to see Moreau Lake all sparkling white from shore to shore, following last night's snowfall.  Most exciting, the "Thin Ice" signs were down,  so the lake was completely walkable, all over its surface.  I don't know how to explain it, but I always feel a certain thrill, walking across that wide-open frozen lake under that huge blue sky.

I stopped to chat with some ice fishermen, including this cheerful fellow named Vince, who had caught two beautiful Rainbow Trout.  Nice big ones, too.  See them lying on the ice in front of Vince.   I swear, it takes a special breed of guy to sit out on a windy cold lake all day long and insist that he's having fun.  I love the cold, but I have to keep moving in it.  Man, he doesn't even have GLOVES on!

If I had to sit still on a frozen lake all day, I'd do what this fellow named Zach is doing, sitting nice and cozy inside a blind that keeps out the cold wind and keeps in the heat from a small propane heater between his feet.

But then, wouldn't that make it all the colder, having to climb out of that warm cocoon to tend to the fishing lines?   I guess he must feel it's worth it, especially when a nice 18-incher like this one is tugging on the other end of the line.