Saratoga woods and waterways

Beautiful Barks Along Bog Meadow

2012-01-24T21:06:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-22T00:03:00.003-05:00

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!

2012-01-20T23:53:00.001-05:00

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.

A Brisk Riverside Ramble

2012-01-18T20:46:00.000-05:00

A bright beautiful day today, but ooh, that wind! Ear-piercing, nose-numbing, cheeks-freezing wind. I really hate wind in the winter. But I'd been house-bound for two days and I had to get out, so I drove to the end of Potter Road in Moreau and made my way down to the Hudson through the woods. Here, there is often some shelter from wind, thanks to mountains rising to the south and west, and it's almost always quiet in the woods. There was a brisk wind whipping down the course of the open river, but the water out there lay still as glass under a sheet of ice from shore to shore.

Last time I was here, I found the cocoon of a Cecropia Moth lashed to a twig of a Black Tupelo, and I was glad to see it was still hanging there. Today, backlit as it was by the sun, I could see that the larva was still snug inside its winter wrapper. It seems hard to believe that that packet of flimsy tissue could keep a living thing safe through the bitter cold, but I guess it must. Does anyone know if I could break off that twig and bring the cocoon home to place outside my kitchen window, so I could watch it emerge in the spring? Or should I leave it where its caterpillar chose to place it?

There is some snow in the woods along the river here, but it's icy and pocked by having been melted, rained on, and then refrozen. I couldn't find any animal tracks except those of deer, the only animal heavy enough to break through the hard crust. It really is amazing to see the variety of tracks criss-crossing this woods when the snow is fresh: otter, mink, fisher, coyote, fox, squirrels (red and gray), turkey, deer, rabbits, mice, voles and shrews, plus wingprints of ravens and eagles as they land on the frozen bays. You'd never guess, without those tracks as evidence, that this woods is so well-populated by all these creatures. Rare indeed is the moment when you actually lay eyes upon them. I thought for just an instant today, that I'd caught a glimpse of a large owl sitting at the base of a tree. But nope, just some peeling bark with two dots of well-placed fungus.

B-r-r-r-ding the Ft. Edward Grasslands

2012-01-15T23:28:00.002-05:00

Ten below zero when I got up this morning, with a bit of wind stirring the dangling seeds of the Box Elder tree outside my kitchen window. And I don't think it got much warmer than ten above all day. I must be nuts, I thought to myself, as I agreed to meet Sue this afternoon for a birdwatching jaunt around the grasslands east of Ft. Edward in Washington County, an open rolling (and windy!) habitat designated one of New York's Important Birding Areas. But the thrill of the hunt overcame the dread of the cold, especially since area birders had reported seeing a pair of Short-eared Owls (an endangered species in New York State) hunting these fields in recent weeks. So out came the big down coat and the fur-lined hat with flaps that cover my cheeks and chin, and off I drove to meet Sue.

We left my car on the side of a road and rode together in Sue's car, meandering through the hills and meadows of this vast open area looking for hawks until it grew late enough to start looking for owls. We had hardly started our birding journey when Sue spotted a Rough-legged Hawk soaring over a hedgerow, and I later pointed out a Red-tailed Hawk perching in a tree. A bit later we saw a hawk with white undersides and black wing-tips flying low over a field, a bird Sue later confirmed was indeed a Northern Harrier. Important Birding Area, indeed!

As a lowering sun began to cast long shadows across the fields, we made our way to the specific site where the Short-eared Owls have been spotted. Unlike most other species of owls, which hunt in the dark of night, the Short-eared often leave their roost and begin their evening's hunt before the sun disappears, giving us some small hope that we might actually see them today.

We were not the only ones to share that hope. We were soon joined by other avid birders, including one couple who had driven to this spot all the way from Amsterdam, NY, several counties away. But especially exciting to us was the arrival of noted bird photographer Gordon Ellmers, who set up his scope and camera in the hopes of obtaining some shots of this rare and endangered bird.

Well, it certainly was our lucky day! The fellow from Amsterdam let out a shout -- "There's one!" -- and we all trained our binoculars in the direction he pointed. Sure enough, a pair of owls came flapping along, close to the ground, and Gordon hurried to get his shots while the birds remained within range and the daylight lasted. Here's a shot that Gordon generously shared with us and permitted me to publish. I did not even attempt to photograph the owls with my little pocket camera with its limited zoom. Plus, I did not want to put down my binoculars, lest I miss a moment of watching these elusive birds.

Photo by Gordon Ellmers, used with permission.

My readers can visit our regional Audubon site to see more truly spectacular and instructive photos by Gordon Ellmers of these beautiful owls, as well asof two of the hawks Sue and I saw today, the Rough-legged and the Northern Harrier. Also, be sure to visit Sue's blog Water-lily to read her account and see her wonderful photos of today's adventure.

Our faces numb and our fingers nearly frozen, Sue and I agreed it was time to head home to hot suppers, and so we went our separate ways, she to Queensbury and I to Saratoga. I did take a little detour to the tiny river village of Ft. Miller, stopping to take in the beauty of sunset on the Hudson. There were still areas of open water along this stretch, and flocks of geese came circling in from many directions, peppering the deep-blue sky with their darkened profiles.

Gordon Ellmers had told us that he had seen many hundreds of Snow Geese on the river at Ft. Miller today, but I could not tell what species of goose these were, dark shapes against the water and sky and filling the air with their haunting cries. I hope this huge flock was able to find an area of open water to spend the night.

Frazil Forms on the Rivers

2012-01-15T00:51:00.000-05:00

Saturday, January 15: Still very cold today, but not so windy as on Friday, and we even had some bright sunshine this afternoon, so I had no excuse to not get outdoors today. I drove up to Hadley, where the Hudson River joins the Sacandaga, hoping to catch sight of eagles fishing in the waters kept open by turbulence on both rivers. No eagles in sight today, but I still saw a fascinating phenomenon: the formation of "frazil" ice in the turbulent waters.

Both rivers were running full and fast today. Here's the Hudson as it roars through a gorge at Rockwell Falls.

Here's the Sacandaga in full rowdy flow as it charges toward the restored Bow Bridge that joins both sections of Hadley. The two rivers come together just beyond the Bow Bridge.

At the confluence of the two rivers, I noticed accumulations of slushy ice that had congealed into the distinctive cakes or pans so typical of the special ice called "frazil." This is a kind of fluid ice that forms when turbulent water throws droplets into the frigid air, where the droplets form crystals and fall back into the water. The frozen droplets stick together to form thick mats that build on themselves, often creating "hanging dams" that obstruct the river's flow, causing the mats to rise and be deposited along the river banks. Certain stretches of the Hudson to the north of here are renowned for amassing huge accumulations of this ice, sometimes as thick as 15 or 20 feet.

I climbed down the snow-covered bank to the water's edge and followed the Hudson upstream from where it joined the Sacandaga. As I approached the bridge that joins the villages of Hadley and Lake Luzerne, I noticed a thick raft of what looked like heaps of snow just downstream of the bridge.

Here's a closer look at that raft, which is not snow at all (we certainly haven't had anything like this amount yet this winter), but rather an accumulation of frazil ice.

I then climbed up the bank and out onto the bridge to observe the river from above, looking downstream. The river was flowing freely both above and below this frazil raft, so the frazil had obviously not "grounded" here -- an unlikely occurrence, since the river is exceptionally deep at this point.

Walking over to the upstream side of the bridge, I looked directly down to where the torrent, constrained by steep rocky cliffs on both sides, suddenly explodes in a froth of swirling whitewater. I wondered if frazil ice was forming just as I watched, since I saw milky trails of slushy ice collecting into a mass along the right bank. This mass would grow in size until its edge reached the swirling current, which then swept much of the slushy ice downstream as more began to accumulate in the shelter of the bank.

This process was rather mesmerizing to watch, and I could have stayed there a long time, but my face grew numb and my nose started dripping from the cold wind. So I took a little video to watch in the cozy warmth of my home.

A Bowlful of Kitty

2012-01-13T15:41:00.000-05:00

Yeah, okay, we got some snow yesterday -- the sodden rained-on stuff that gives winter a bad name. I couldn't even bear to take a photo of it, let alone go out and play in it. Then today, the wind is howling and gusting up to 50 miles/hour. Stuck indoors, I decided to make some cookies and got out the mixing bowl. Ooh, what's this? little Cleo wondered as she climbed right in and discovered the bowl made a lovely place for a nap. Or so she thought!

Hmm . . . . This looks interesting. Will I fit?

Guess I'll have a little wash-up before I settle in.

What! You want me to get out and let you have the bowl?

Nuh-uh. I'm gonna take a little snooze first.

I'll get her out of there, says brother Bebert.

Oh yeah? Sez who? Take that, you rat!

Aw, Mom! Can't I stay, pleeeeease?

No, she couldn't. And don't worry about hairy cookies. I washed the bowl really well before I used it.

Icy Amusements

2012-01-11T21:27:00.001-05:00

Ho hum. A winter without any snow can be really boring. No skiing or sledding or snowshoeing or following animal tracks in the woods. But lucky for me, I am easily amused. And even luckier for me, I not only have the wonderful Moreau Lake to explore in every weather, I also have a congenial pal named Sue to enjoy exploring it with me. We met for a walk at the lake this morning and were delighted to see the water completely frozen over. Not thickly enough to cross as yet, but perfect for ambling along on close to shore, where we could see straight down to the lake bottom under crystal-clear ice. Here's a view of the lake from the new deck of a cabin that hangs right over the water. Over the ice, today. (Lucky the campers who rent this cabin next summer!)

Here's Sue trying to take a video of the hundreds of minnows that clustered close to shore, exploding away at our footfalls above them, faster than we could capture a photo of them.

I loved looking down through the ice at the many-colored stones, their beauty intensified by the crystalline water.

A frozen lake presents many puzzles, such as what caused these bulges of clear ice to form around the base of plant stalks?

Or what caused these jagged patterns of frosted and clear on the surface of the ice?

Here was an interesting patch of clear dark circles polka-dotting an area of white opaque ice.

The pattern above is just the reverse of what we expect to see. Usually, ice bubbles are opaque white as they stack up in layers within the dark clear ice . We found lots of bubbles like that, each one prettier than the last.

Here was a distinct trail of bubbles that formed as a creature swam under the ice. And what could that creature be?

Most likely the creature that takes shelter under this heap of sticks and leaves, a muskrat lodge.

Aha! More evidence that a muskrat has been about, dragging its skinny tail through the slushy ice before it froze hard.

And here is the muskrat in the flesh, resting under the boat dock near the beach. Of course, it dived into the open water before I could get a closer shot.

At this point, we were more than half-way around the lake, but we had to hurry on so that Sue could get to work on time. We'd spent a long time dallying on the bridge between the lake and the back bay, marveling at the howls and pings and cracks and groans that lake ice makes as it freezes, sounding like a battle out of Star Wars. As I said before, we are easily amused.

We Were Strollin' Along . . .

2012-01-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

. . . On a moonlit lake, and what a marvelous night for a moonwalk it was. Moreau Lake State Park offers full-moon hikes every month, and there are plenty of months when no moon can be seen, but tonight that silvery orb was in her glory. The sky cleared just in time for her to light our path through the woods and around the lake.

There were about 30 of us (including a number of children and dogs) making our way along moon-dappled trails where we hardly needed any flashlight to show the way, especially with park naturalist Gary Hill leading the group and stopping us from time to time to give a brief nature lesson. I volunteered to bring up the rear to help keep us all together, which required that I resist the temptation to slip off by myself to experience the magic of sitting quietly in silence and moonlight.

Gary keeps up a pretty brisk pace, which helps to keep folks warm on winter nights (although tonight was barely below freezing), but it also kept me from spending a lot of time trying to get good photos of the night sky. No time to stop and set up a tripod, so these shots are pretty much point and shoot on the run, resulting in grainy but rather lovely images of the kind of darkened landscape few of us ever get to see any more. Both Venus and Jupiter hung in the sky like bright lamps tonight. I believe the shining planet in this photograph is Venus.

The ice-covered lake shone with a silvery glow as the moon climbed higher and higher, accompanied here by the winter constellation Orion, with the bright Betelgeuse marking Orion's right shoulder. (If you click on this photo, you may also see part of Orion's belt as well as his left foot.)

There were a few clouds, but they only served to amplify the beauty of the moonlight.

After making our way around the lake, the group stopped off at the warming hut for hot cocoa and hot dogs while enjoying a roaring fire in the fireplace inside. Now that I no longer had to watch out for stragglers, I went outside to try to get better photographs of the moon, but all my shots turned out super-grainy, the moon consistently blurred by a purple halo. To the naked eye, the moon's edge was as sharp as if carved with a scalpel.

Since I couldn't get any perfect photos of the moon, I went ahead and had fun distorting the photos with various editing options, altering the exposure and the gamma and saturation and even changing the colors outright, coming up with some amazing abstractions of the moon shining through trees. This is one that pleased me even more than a perfect image would have.

A Frosty Walk Up the Red Oak Ridge

2012-01-04T21:59:00.000-05:00

Oof! The consequences of too many weeks of overeating and undermoving were evident today as I huffed and puffed up the steep parts of the Red Oak Ridge Trail at Moreau Lake State Park. I really gotta get back in shape! It's too easy to make excuses not to go out for a walk when the weather's really cold, as it was this morning -- about 5 below zero when I came down for breakfast. But the sun was up, too, and the morning soon warmed up to the teens, so no more excuses, Jackie, get out there and get moving.

When I got to Moreau, I was pleased to see the lake entirely frozen over at last. It's still too thin to walk on, though, so I hiked around the shore to the trail that would take me about half way up the mountain seen here in this photo and then continue along the ridge.

There's enough up and down to this trail to give you a pretty good workout, but the best part about it is how beautiful it is in every season, as it passes through oak/hickory and mixed conifer forest and crosses several pretty tumbling streams.

The streams were rushing full from recent rains, and the frigid night had turned the watercourses into fairy castles of ice.

After leaving the trail to follow a stream up the mountain, I came to an area of hemlocks and huge boulders, perfect habitat for porcupines, who make their dens in a series of caves that run underneath the boulders and who dine each night up high in the surrounding trees. I've yet to see one in the flesh up here, but when there's snow, I have seen their well-trodden trails leading from dens to the trees.

Here's one of the caves where they make their dens, detectable from some distance away by a strong odor like rancid sawdust emanating from the depths. As I crouched in this opening to peer in, I could feel warm humid air wafting upwards and out, which explains the festoons of hoarfrost decorating porky's doorway.

Leaning further into the mouth of the cave, I could see many porcupine quills littering the passageway. I also heard odd sounds coming from deep within, a sort of grunting and muttering with an occasional squeal that let me know that someone was home. I've never heard porcupines make any noises, but I was hoping it was indeed a porcupine (or two!), and not a bear whose sleep I had disturbed. (I did record just a few of these sounds, which you can hear in the post below this one.)

Here are some close-up shots of those frosty festoons.

As I walked around the area among the boulders and caves, I saw several similar accumulations of frost, and when I knelt down to examine them, I felt that similar rush of warm humid air and discovered openings leading deep down into and under the rocks. I wonder just how extensive this cave system is, and if they are all connected. The porcupine caves are big enough that I could crawl into them if I stayed on my hands and knees (and could bear the odor!), but this opening was much smaller.

And this one smaller still. When I lifted that maple leaf, I could feel a draft of that warm humid air and see a small passage leading down until it disappeared in darkness.

I sure had a wonderful time up there, poking about in the woods and the rocks and the water just as I used to do when I was a kid. Pure contentment washes over me, a feeling that I possess everything I could ever need or want, and that all is well. I was reminded of a poem by Mary Oliver that I looked up when I got home, and yes, she says it exactly right:

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and the discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

I took the slow road home, stopping by the farm where I used to see two huge and beautiful Belgian horses. In their place today were these two huge and beautiful Paints, who came right up to the fence and let me pet them. I think they could sense my feeling of sweet contentment. They certainly added to it with the gentle gazes from their lovely eyes.

Who's That Grunting Down in That Cave?

2012-01-04T20:17:00.000-05:00

Be sure to turn up the volume on your computer, and you might hear little gruntings down in this cave. I'm assuming it was a porcupine, since quills and porky scat were all around, and in snowy winter, we can trace porcupine tracks into this cave way up on a ridge overlooking Moreau Lake.

But I've never heard a porcupine make any sounds. Um. . . . Would a bear ever occupy a porcupine's cave?

A Three-Eagle, One-Photo Day

2012-01-03T20:53:00.001-05:00

Wow, a three-eagle day, and THIS was the best photo I could get?! With the naked eye, I could hardly see that Bald Eagle perched in the tree along the Hudson River yesterday, although my binoculars showed it clearly enough.

My camera couldn't see it very well, though. This is the closest I can crop without pixillation. But I think the white head and tail are evident even in this blurry shot.

When I say a three-eagle day, I should amend that to say Sue's three-eagle day, since my friend Sue is the one who actually saw and identified the distant specks that only later revealed themselves to be eagles. We started our birdwatching day yesterday at the Betar Byway in South Glens Falls, where Sue saw the first eagle flying along the river (I arrived too late to catch sight of it). After waiting in vain for a reappearance while stamping our feet in the cold, we then hopped in our nice warm cars and moved upstream to where the Hudson makes its big curve just above the Spier Falls Dam in Moreau. That's where we saw the eagle perched in the tree above, very close to the site where state park naturalists have placed a road-killed deer carcass. It was probably resting after enjoying its carrion breakfast.

That eagle soon took to the air and soared close over our heads before taking off upstream with the heavy, slow wingbeats so distinctive of this species. Here, Sue and another eagle enthusiast named Pat follow the bird's flight until it disappeared among the trees far upstream. Pat is a truly dedicated seeker of eagles who had been at this site for many hours already before Sue and I arrived, and it was she who pointed out the one I managed to photograph.

Pat also told us about another good spot for eagle sightings, Fish Creek at Stafford's Bridge, so off we drove to Stafford's Bridge Road between Saratoga and Schuylerville. We were just in the process of telling each other we didn't think this was a likely spot, when this great big brown juvenile eagle came soaring toward us, dive-bombing a double line of pigeons sunning themselves on power lines right over our heads. I hope Sue got a good photo, because I sure didn't. Maybe she'll post a photo of it on her wonderful blog Water-Lily.

So Pat's recommendation came true after all, and we thank her for it. We'll have to revisit often, as long as the water stays open.

Three eagles in one day is rather remarkable, especially since they quite promptly disappeared from sight soon after we saw them. Most days, we search and search to no avail. On Sunday afternoon, my husband and I stopped by the Hudson bend at Moreau, hoping to spot eagles feeding at the deer carcass. We didn't see any, but the river was so lovely and serene I just had to take photos of it. If I were an eagle, I'd sure like to call this place my home.

Another Year of Wonders

2012-01-01T01:50:00.000-05:00

Drizzly and raw yesterday, but I hardly noticed the weather outside, immersed as I was indoors, reviewing the past year's blog posts. What a year of adventures it was, and how glad I am that I keep this blog, so that I may revisit each outing, marveling at the bounty of wonders that surround us here and rejoicing in the dear friends who share my enchantment with the natural world. (Readers can revisit some of these outings, too, by clicking on the colored words.)

The weather was a huge influence on the natural environment this year, beginning with deep snows and bitter cold that started last January. Although the snow came late (not until after Christmas), it came fast and deep and persistent, lasting until way into April on many wooded trails. This photo of my friend Sue Pierce was taken on the banks of the Hudson in mid-January, when the snow was so deep and soft our snowshoes hardly helped us. Not that we let that keep us out of the woods!

Here's another friend, Evelyn Greene, who is an expert on the qualities of "frazil" ice, a special kind of fluid ice that here fills the Hudson north of Warrensburg. This photo was taken in mid-March, when dams of frazil blocked the river and caused record high flooding above this stretch of the river.

On March 19, we had the biggest and brightest full moon since 1993, a "super perigee moon," when the moon became full just at the closest point to earth in its orbit. And it just so happened that Moreau Lake State Park had scheduled a full-moon hike that night, a night that was clear and cold, so many of us got to watch this beautiful moon rise over the frozen lake.

April came, and with it torrential rains that, combined with rapid snow-melt in the mountains, filled the rivers to record levels, flooding riverside homes and washing out many roads and bridges in low-lying areas. These houses are along the Hudson at Lake Luzerne.

Here's another view of that raging Hudson where it roars through -- and completely fills -- a gorge just upstream from the flooded homes.

The rains weren't ALL bad news, especially for the frogs and toads and other amphibians that were on the move in mid-April, heading toward their mating pools. The Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park conducted an amphibian-assistance program, where volunteers helped these little critters safely across the roads one rainy night. One of the naturalists directing the program located this pair of Spade-foot Toads by their distinctive mating calls, and he restrained them briefly so that we could see them -- a rare treat, since the toads will use their spade-equipped hind feet to dig into the sand, remaining underground for the rest of the year. What a couple of cuties!

Warm weather arrived in May, along with the annual explosion of spring wildflowers. Day after day I filled page after page of my notebooks with flower finds, but the highlight of the month was a trip to Dorset Mountain in Vermont, organized by fellow plant lovers Ed Miller and Nan Williams. This mountain is the site of long-defunct marble quarries, which enrich the surrounding forest with lime, creating a rich habitat for such beauties as these Small Yellow Lady Slippers, so numerous we could hardly move without stepping on them.

June was a month of many amazing adventures, beginning with a trip to Concord, Massachusetts, with my friends Sue Pierce, Ed Miller, Ruth Schottman, and Nan Williams, plant enthusiasts all. Thanks to Sue's long association with things Thoreauvian, she was able to find us all lodging at a charming B&B right on the shores of Walden Pond. The focus of our trip was a visit to the New England Wildflower Society's Garden in the Woods in nearby Framingham, but we also enjoyed exploring the woods around Walden Pond.

Hardly more than two weeks later, I joined Ruth, Ed, Nan, and a fourth botanist, Frank Knight (second from left), on a 5-day trip to Ithaca to attend a meeting of the American Botanical Society, filled with field trips to many different habitats. Of course, the botanizing was educational and great fun, but the best part of the trip was spending time with these wonderful folks, who are as knowledgeable about plants as they are delightful to be with.

If not for my blog, I doubt I would have come to know such wonderful folks as these, as well as other members of the Thursday Naturalists, a friendly group of very well-informed nature enthusiasts who have graciously invited me to join them on their weekly excursions to interesting nature sites.

Another friend I've made through my blog is Evelyn Greene, a life-long explorer of the Adirondacks who knows lots of secret places where very rare plants grow, and she is kind enough to share those secrets with me from time to time. Of course, I am also sworn to secrecy about these locations, but Evelyn does allow me to show some of the treasures we find, such as this exquisite Dragon's Mouth Orchid (Arethusa bulbosa), one of New York's rarest and most beautiful wildflowers.

Evelyn also took me to another site where the stunning Showy Lady's Slipper was growing abundantly, its rosy and rotund blooms popping up everywhere we looked. This is another of the more than 50 species of orchids native to New York State; in fact, more orchids grow here than in either Florida or Hawaii, and many of them prefer cold northern bogs.

July brought several excursions to Pyramid Lake in Essex County, in the Adirondacks. Except for the retreat center that occupies one shore of the lake, this is a pristine wilderness lake, surrounded by the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness Area and accessible to autos only by way of the retreat center. A number of rare species of plants can be found along these shores, and I was pleased to conduct a field trip here open to members of the newly formed Adirondack Botanical Society. I also returned later in the month to attend a retreat.

In August, we had a little wildlife adventure right in our own backyard, where I captured three wild four-week-old kittens when their feral mother left them alone for a while. It's hard to believe that such tiny furballs could be so fierce, but they sure put up a fight, hissing and spitting and scratching and biting, but I got them home and we managed to gentle them with love and food. We eventually found a home for the pretty calico one pictured here, but we kept the little gray-and-white, as well as her tiger brother, who now keep us laughing with their kittenish antics and our laps warmed by their furry and purry snuggles.

Another August adventure was following my intrepid friends Evelyn and Bonnie as we bushwhacked our boats through trackless forest to isolated Little Rankin Pond. To get there, we first paddled across a larger pond and traversed an extensive sphagnum bog, where Evelyn spotted an abundant growth of an increasingly rare plant called Podgrass. Plus lots of orchids, too. And we found our way back again, no problem at all. Evelyn knows her way around the woods.

Our summer was the rainiest I can remember, so that when September arrived, the forest simply exploded with more mushrooms than I have ever seen, in amazing varieties of shape and color.

September also brought Hurricane Irene, which then became Tropical Storm Irene, dumping unprecedented amounts of rainfall in the rivers and mountain valleys, causing devastating floods in the Adirondacks and Catskills, along the Mohawk, and in valley towns in Vermont. Shortly after came another storm, Lee, which dumped more flooding rains on the same communities. We were lucky not to suffer much damage in Saratoga County, but this photo of the Mohawk River at Waterford/Cohoes shows something of the force of that water.

We were lucky, too, that the charming coastal village of Rockport, Massachusetts, was spared from hurricane damage, for that's where my husband and I planned to spend a few days in late September. My friend Sue has come to this place for years, and because she was vacationing here at the same time we were, she could show us the best features of both the village and the surrounding area. Our hotel balcony looked right over the water, and we slept each night with the sound of the sea in our ears. Lovely!

Snow in October! This sure has been a year of very strange weather. Also, the autumn foliage colors were quite muted this year, except for occasional trees that blazed as if lit from within. Our snow was just a dusting, though, not like the heaps and heaps that fell so destructively downstate, and rain soon washed it away. We've not had any significant snowfall since.

Come November, the flowers and fungi no longer add their colors to the woods, so a nature enthusiast has to find something else to capture her interest. Happily, another of the friends I've made through my blog is Nancy Slack, a biology professor and bryologist who is kindly trying to teach me the names of the mosses and lichens and liverworts that decorate nearly every tree and fallen log in the forest. Most have no common names, so I find them a little hard to memorize, but little by little, I will learn some. For example, I do know that that little green puff of moss is Ulota crispa, and the lacy brown stuff behind is some species of Frullania liverwort. I don't know that greenish-gray lichen.

And now it's the very last day of December. Christmas has come and gone with no snow, but ice has started to cover the quiet back bays of the lakes and rivers, and icicles form where water splashes up from rushing creeks. Who knows what the rest of the winter will bring? It's been quite a year for surprises.

So here we start again, another year of keeping this nature blog. Without it, would I have ventured out as much as I did, even on days that were 30 below? Or 95 above? Maybe not. But I'm happy to have that spur to boot me out the door. I'm always glad when I'm out there. I found nearly 40 new plants this year to add to my life list, and I collected a number of specimens of plants for which there was no record in Saratoga County. How many more are out there, just waiting for me to find them?

I can't end the year without a special thanks to my dear friend and fellow student of nature, Sue. It's a wonderful thing to find a companion so perfectly in tune with the way I like to walk through the woods or move on the water, who doesn't grow impatient as I struggle to make my camera focus or while I thumb through my field guides to try to identify my find. And what would I do without her sharp eyes that see so much that I would overlook? Plus her knowledge of birdsong and woodland lore. Thanks, Sue, for being such a wonderful nature buddy. Here's to another year of adventuring.

The Eagles Are Here!

2011-12-31T00:06:00.001-05:00

The Hudson ran dark and glassy today, providing the perfect background for spotting the snowy-white heads and tails of adult Bald Eagles. With high hopes that we might do just that, about a dozen folks accompanied Moreau Lake State Park naturalist Gary Hill to the river this frosty-cold morning to search the water, the sky, and the forested banks where these majestic birds can sometimes be seen perching in trees. Here we are at the boat launch site below Spier Falls Dam, scanning the hillsides downstream.

Here, my friend Sue is searching the river upstream. We saw no eagles at this particular site, but Sue did point out some Hooded Mergansers paddling close to the opposite shore.

After stopping to search the river at several other places along Spier Falls Road, with no trace of eagles anywhere, we made our final stop at the boat launch site above Spier Falls Dam. Here, the river was mostly frozen over, although there were still a few patches of open water where eagles could fish. Also, as a feeding station to attract the eagles, park staffers had placed the carcass of a road-killed deer on the rocky promontory visible on the left side of this photo. If we were going to see any eagles today, this was the best place to spot them.

Sure enough, sharp-eyed Sue spotted an adult eagle flying along the hillsides upstream, although we promptly lost sight of it as it moved behind trees. While most of our group continued to search for that elusive eagle upstream, I trained my binoculars across the bay to this clump of trees on the rocks, where I spotted a splotch of white. Hey, I called, I think we've got another one here!

And there it was, just sitting there calmly in that clump of trees, directly above the deer carcass that had no doubt provided its breakfast. I wish I could say that this photo was of that eagle, but it's actually one I took of another eagle along the Hudson last year. Today's eagle took off before I could open my camera, and it flew across the bay to perch on the opposite bank, far out of my camera's focal range but clearly visible to us across the water. Gary had brought along a spotting scope, so everybody was able to get a good view of this magnificent bird, which provided a nice reward for our standing around in the cold.

Back Out to the Woods and Waters

2011-12-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

A bright, cold, clear day, and oh, it was wonderful to get under that radiant sky and swing my legs along pine-needled paths and sandy shores at Moreau Lake State Park. I do love the holidays, a month of feasting and family fun from Thanksgiving to Christmas, except that most of that month is spent indoors and eating far too much food that's not good for me. So now I'm ready to get back to healthier eating and especially to just go out and play in the woods all day. Yesterday, a ferocious wind slapped me back into the house after just a few moments outdoors, but today a calmer air and a kindly sun called me out to wander for hours.

No snow as yet, as these photos show, but ice now covers the back bay of Moreau Lake from shore to shore. I can hardly wait until the ice is thick enough to walk on, allowing me to reach my favorite haunts around the lake more quickly and directly. We'll have freezing nights the rest of the week, I've heard, so I'm hoping it won't be long. Today, the ice was whooping and moaning, a sign of further freezing.

Up close to shore, I could see all the wrinkles and crinkles that form as the water freezes. It would be amazing to have a time-lapse movie of how these patterns progress.

Part of the fun of winter hiking is trying to recognize plants in their winter attire. On my way home from Moreau I stopped off at Yaddo to visit some American Bladdernut shrubs that grow by a stream, and was glad to find a few bladders still dangling from the twigs.

A tree had fallen into the stream, and its bark was mottled with a very dark green lichen I don't recall seeing before.

I risked a slip into the stream to get a closer look at that lichen, much darker green than the very common Green Shield Lichen. I though it was quite beautiful.

Like Father, Like Son

2011-12-28T21:04:00.001-05:00

Had a wonderful Christmas with all my children and grandchildren at my daughter's home in Mt. Kisco, with great food and fun and lots of music. Here's my youngest grandson, Alex (1 year old), showing off his dance moves. His daddy, Peter, is a rock-and-roll musician, who has obviously passed on his love for moving to music. (You might have to click a couple of times in the center of this white space for the video to show up.)

The Light Shines in the Darkness . . .

2011-12-23T22:49:00.000-05:00

Whatever it is that brings light to your life and joy to your heart,

may you find it abundantly.

To all my friends and family and fellow nature enthusiasts,

I wish you the very happiest of holiday seasons.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

from Jackie Donnelly

Where is Winter?

2011-12-23T22:08:00.000-05:00

According to my calendar, today is the second day of winter. But it sure didn't look or feel very wintry when I walked along the banks of the Hudson River today. Intermittent sun warmed the already balmy air, and puffy white clouds sailed above the top of West Mountain over on the Warren County side of the river.

With all the rain and warm weather of late, the woods have taken on the look of a mossy green rainforest.

Except for the thin ice that films the back bays of the river, these rocky promontories look about the same as they would in mid-autumn.

Mountain streams that would normally be dry by now are running as full as in springtime. This waterfall can be seen from the road that runs over Mount MacGregor.

This tumbling torrent was bounding down a mountainside along Spier Falls Road.

Many different mosses are thriving in the damp woods, where they share the leaf litter with such lichens as this many-tentacled one, a variety I haven't seen before. I'm sure I've been told the scientific names of these two mosses, one furry, one ferny, but I confess that I have forgotten them.

I do remember the name of this liverwort, though: Bazzania trilobata. My photo doesn't show it, but each leaf of this leafy liverwort has three lobes, as its Latin name describes.

There were even some fresh-looking mushrooms in the woods today. I don't know the name of these little tree fungi, but I thought their winter-white color looked very pretty against the red bark of their fallen limb, backed by the green moss that adorned the log lying behind -- Christmas colors!

I wonder if this sturdy toothed tree fungus will keep its vivid orange throughout the winter. It certainly stood out as a flash of bright color in the dim woods.

What a pretty clump of Poverty Oat Grass (Danthonia spicata), with blades as curly and colorful as the ribbons on a Christmas package.

As shiny red and green as any holly, Partridgeberry carpets the forest floor with Christmas colors.

I found this cocoon lashed to a Black Tupelo twig and wondered what kind of caterpillar created it. It was nearly four inches long, so perhaps this is the cocoon of a Cecropia moth, a very big and beautiful moth that, if all goes well, will emerge in the spring. I'll be keeping my eye on it as the winter progresses.

'Tis the Season!

2011-12-18T22:36:00.000-05:00

Here it is at last, the fourth Sunday of Advent! I like to keep Advent as a season in its own right, a time not for holiday celebrations before their time, but rather for quietly waiting for Christmas as the darkness deepens outside. But now that the last Advent candle has been lit, it's time to start bringing some Christmas things down from the attic, including this little shrine to a paddler Santa and his northwoods companions.

A few more creatures have joined the party this year, including several that normally wouldn't be up and about at Christmas time -- the snapping turtle and snake would likely be hibernating (as would the bear and raccoon), the Mallard hen should have flown south, and the Red-eyed Tree Frog would never be found this far north unless it was somebody's pet. But I couldn't find any toy native frogs this tiny, and besides, we know that Santa is magic, and that his love would be strong enough to keep everybody warm. (And also to keep the critters from trying to eat one another.)

The weather, too, took a Christmassy turn today, with temperatures plunging down into the teens and single digits. But oh, what a sapphire sky! I wrapped up my ears and set off around the shore of Moreau Lake for an afternoon hike. My approach set off quite a ruckus among the large flock of Canada Geese that had congregated on the open water of the lake.

Although the windswept center of the lake was still wide open, all the sheltered bays were filmed with a thin layer of ice, not strong enough yet to walk on, but glassy enough to make for some lovely reflections.

Close to the shore, where the ice froze clear as crystal, I could see these clusters of tiny bubbles trapped beneath, flattened on top where they pressed against the ice, which rendered them iridescent.

Here are some more. Aren't they beautiful? Who need diamonds and pearls, when Nature gifts us with such treasures.

The ice turned the bubbles to diamonds and pearls, while the sunlight turned the water ripples to ribbons of gold on the underlying sand.

As I strode along on the sunlit shore, I grew warm enough to loosen my coat -- almost warm enough to fool me into thinking these might be blooming flowers, opening their yellow petals to the sun. But no, I knew better. These are the bracts of Witch Hazel flowers, what's left after the ribbon-like petals have fallen.

Wouldn't these pretty Witch Hazel bracts make appropriate Christmas decorations, as symbols of life in the dead of winter, the same as evergreens? No, no, I take that back. Leave them out in the woods where they belong, to delight us when we happen upon them, these pert little posies "blooming" all winter long.

Let There Be Peace

2011-12-16T21:57:00.000-05:00

I woke much too early this morning, startled awake by a terrifying roar overhead, the windows rattling in their sashes, the sound of somebody crying somewhere in the darkness. Well, lucky for me, it was only a raging wind slamming into my house and not bombs raining death all around me; only the cry of a frightened cat, not that of a child ripped open by errant shrapnel. I was safe and warm in my bed, and so, no doubt, were all those I loved. Dear God, may that be so now for all who have suffered through this Iraq War, soldiers and civilians alike. "Let woe and waste of warfare cease, . . . Lord, grant thy wayward people peace." Those are words from a hymn we sing in church, and they ran through my mind all day.

That raging wind dragged a new weather system upon us, with a warm blustery morning merging into a quiet cold afternoon. By the time I walked in Woods Hollow Nature Preserve in Ballston Spa this afternoon, the pond lay as still as glass, and I was grateful for the sense of peace this landscape evoked in me.

Soaring pines towered over my head, lifting my spirits along with my gaze. Although there were many clouds, bright spots of blue showed through.

Eons of pine needles cushioned the path, so I walked along without making a sound, embraced by silence. Perhaps we will soon have snow, with colder weather moving in, and these pretty Wintergreen plants will endure the winter under the snow, emerging in spring as fresh and green as they look today, their berries still plump and bright. I find their resilience reassuring, when I think of all those who have been wounded by war.

I know there's a large school of goldfish living in Woods Hollow Pond, but I'm always startled to see them, bright orange flashes among the green of reflected pines. They probably got here by somebody dumping an unwanted few from a fishbowl, and over the years their population has soared.

I wonder what kind of havoc they are wreaking upon the pond's ecosystem, since this is not a native species. Dumping them in here probably seemed like a good idea at the time, to the ill-informed person who introduced them. Just like invading Iraq was some ill-informed people's idea of a good decision, nine years and hundreds of thousands of deaths ago. Ah well, at least these goldfish are beautiful, and they haven't drained our nation's treasury nor poured our nation's children down the terrible black hole of war.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like . . . EASTER!

2011-12-14T20:21:00.001-05:00

OK, we've had some morning frosts, a wee bit of snow, a little thin ice at the edge of ponds. But then, today, the temperature climbed to close to 50 degrees. This Dandelion and Galinsoga on a downtown sidewalk are acting like winter has already come and gone and it's time to bloom again. A fly has reawakened, too.

Not exactly the Easter Bunny, but another creature better adapted to warmer weather than what winters are supposed to be around here. I've heard that opossums are better suited to more southerly climes, which is why the ears of our local inhabitants are almost always frost-damaged. Poor things! They surely must be enjoying this unseasonably warm weather. This one is certainly enjoying the food we put out for feral cats.

Icy Delights

2011-12-12T21:23:00.003-05:00

A sparkling day, clear and fresh and cold as the tumbling stream that runs through the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in Wilton. That's where I took my walk today, seeking a landscape that matched the beauty of this crystalline day.

We've had little snow so far, but the nights are now cold enough for ice to form along the stream, where droplets splash on overhanging boughs.

Not even diamonds are more beautiful than the crystal spears that dangle over the rushing water.

Bubbles collect along the banks, and there they freeze into brittle plates of froth.

As winter approaches, it always amazes me to see the bare buds of Hobblebush, leaves and flowers already formed, protected against the coming season's icy blasts by no more than the merest fuzz.

Small Treasures Along a Wintry Trail

2011-12-11T20:34:00.001-05:00

Outdoors at last! And what a pretty day for hiking! Household duties and holiday preparations have kept me indoors all week, but today's bright blue sky and crisp cold air was too tempting to resist any longer. Besides, I'd arranged to have my friend Sue meet me for a walk at Bog Meadow Nature Trail this morning, so that's where we went, longjohns underneath, boots on our feet, cameras and binoculars in our bags.

In flower season, I travel this wooded wetland trail quite often, seeking the wide variety of native plants that grow here. I've made a mental map of where some of the most interesting species grow, so I can look for them in every season and try to recognize them at every stage. This abundant patch of Downy Rattlesnake Plantain is always easy to find, since it's marked off with wooden stakes to prevent the trail maintenance folks from mowing it down. The beautiful evergreen leaves are now buried under the snow, but its spent flower stalks still hold their heads high.

Since most of the flowers and leaves are now withered and faded, any spots of pretty color stand out against the browns and grays of the landscape, such as this patch of rich green lichen adorned with a little cluster of coppery fungus.

The trunk of this tree was almost completely covered with a dusty pale-green lichenous growth, spotted with patches of rosy pink. Its subtle colors reminded me of old-fashioned faded wallpaper.

The rich-red pedicels of Panicled Dogwood certainly stood out from the rest of the underbrush.

But nothing is more vividly red than beautiful Winterberry, so striking against the blue sky and water.

Deep-blue ice has newly formed in the little trailside streams, creating patterns of needles and stars.

How reassuring to see these protruding shoots of Skunk Cabbage, reminding us of the promise of spring, just as the new-formed ice announces the arrival of winter.

We hiked to this marsh with the hope of observing waterfowl, but found its surface completely covered with ice, no open water even around the edges. So, no waterfowl. We did see Goldfinches, Bluebirds, Cardinals, and Chickadees feeding among grapevine-festooned trees, one Red-tailed Hawk sailing in circles over the marsh, and Sue kept hearing what she thought was the cry of a Flicker, although she allowed as it could have been the Hairy Woodpecker she did manage to lay her eyes on.

Anyone know what kind of bird made this mud-daubed nest in the crotch of a Poison Sumac? I suppose the young birds would long have fledged before the grapes ripened, but I imagine the large leaves of the grapevine twining among the sumac branches would have provided great cover.

We were able to recognize the shrub as a Poison Sumac because of the clusters of white berries that still dangled from some of the branches. This variety of sumac, despised by humans but extremely valuable to wild birds, is not that common this far north, but we do find it now and then in swampy areas such as this.

All along the trail we found the fluffy seed heads of Virgin's Bower, a native clematis that bears clusters of small white flowers in summer. I love how the sunlight glinted on the silken filaments surrounding the curvaceous wiry structures that remain.

Getting Too Big For Their Niches

2011-12-06T20:08:00.001-05:00

I can't help it. I'm just a sucker for snuggly, sleepy kitty photos. Our brother and sister kittens, Cleo and Bebert, have outgrown their favorite kitty perch, so I bought a second one so each could have more room. But no, they still prefer to pile up in one together.

Last Rose of . . . WINTER!?

2011-12-06T19:31:00.001-05:00

Cold and rainy tonight, with the temperature predicted to drop into the 20s by Thursday. Finally! We've had a stretch of such unseasonably warm days, some of the summer flowers are starting to bloom again. I found this rose blooming today in my neighbor's garden.

A River Road Ramble

2011-12-03T23:59:00.001-05:00

We've had such a nice stretch of blue-sky days, but I've been too busy at home to really get outdoors, except for a quick walk along the Hudson where Spier Falls Road hugs the banks at Moreau. The river lay smooth as glass late Saturday afternoon, with the water reflecting the trees and hills and sky. I was torn between letting my eyes rest on that serene sight or turning to explore the roadside cliffs that rise steeply into the mountains, the boulders watered with tiny springs. Here and there a little rill splashed merrily down tiers of rock.

Those roadside boulders are veritable rock gardens, presenting a fascinating array of lichens, mosses, and the wintering-over rosettes of perennials. Although the sun was bright, the air was cold, and frost still clung to many of the plants, such as these little Pixy Cups furred with a fine fringe of ice.

I loved how this pretty pink sprig of Strawberry was nestled into a thick cushion of lush moss.

Where springwater seeped through thick mats of moss, glassy garlands of icicles sparkled in the late afternoon sun.

Thin sheets of ice coated the face of some boulders, enhancing the rich red of this ferrous rock.

When I reached the stretch of the road that looks out on this lovely river island, I sat for a while just to take in this scene, overwhelmed with gratitude that I live near forests that are left to grow wild and a river that runs clean and clear.

Taking the slow road home to Saratoga, I stopped by a farm to say hello to this sturdy pair of enormous Belgian horses. Now that is a HORSE!

A lowering sun bathed the walls and roof of this handsome old barn with a golden light and cast the shadow of a little black goat against the siding. And oh look, the buds on that Red Maple tree are as rosy and plump as if it were spring, and the grass looks like emerald velvet. Stunned by the beauty of this scene, I had to pull over to gaze upon it, and also to let my eyes clear of tears. Sometimes the gorgeousness of this world fills me with more joy than I can contain.

Walking the Wilton Preserve

2011-11-30T22:56:00.001-05:00

Oh, but it was grand to swing my legs under a wide open sky today, feel the sandy path under my feet, smell the scent of oaks and pines, and enjoy a nice long walk through the Wilton Wildlife Preserve with my good buddy Sue. After a solid week of feasting and family togetherness -- all of it grand, but most of it indoors -- I was eager to get back to my nature haunts and the quiet companionship of a fellow nature ~~nut~~ enthusiast.

I suggested we visit the Gick Farm parcel of the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, a sandy-soiled oak/pine savanna kept open by periodic burns and mowing, as a change of habitat from our usual forested mountain trails at Moreau. Here, the walking was easy on soft sandy paths among tall native grasses moving in waves with the wind.

White Pines and Pitch Pines share this habitat with oaks of several species, including the shrubby Bear Oak (Quercus ilicifolia), just about every one of which was laden with these knobby galls.

Mats of Pussytoes carpeted the sand in places, colored a lovely pink and green. A closer look at the leaves revealed their remarkable hairiness.

In addition to fields of grasses and tracts of open woodlands, this section of the Wilton Preserve also contains several denser forests and a number of wetlands. An abundance of emerald-green watercress marks the course of the little stream that winds through this wetland patch.

Almost every tree in the low-lying woodlands was a veritable garden of mosses and lichens, fungi and liverworts, all commingling in a complex community of many different shapes and sizes and colors.

This very dark, almost black lichen was splotched with a startling patch of bright red. Could it be a natural aspect of this organism, or is this a paint splotch, marking the red-blazed trail we were following?

This little green clump of moss is one of the very few mosses I know the name of: Ulota crispa, here centered on a lacy doily of Frullania liverwort, one of the very few liverworts whose names I know.

Now, what's this white disk? Is this a lichen or some kind of mold? What an amazing array!

I recognize the little Christmas trees as one of the Polytrichum (Haircap) mosses, but I can't remember the name of the dainty fern-like stuff clasping the base of this little tree. I just thought the combination of colors and textures was delightful.

Here's another patch of a Polytrichum moss, containing slender immature spore stalks as well as the spent ones from last year. The most arresting inhabitant of this patch, though, is that amazing fruticose lichen, one of the Cladonias that looks like stacks of trumpets or something drawn by Dr. Seuss. I have heard it called Pagoda, but I do not know its scientific name.

With the light shining through the walls of this Tree Ear fungus, they look like little cups of Cranberry Glass. How pretty they look, especially accompanied by those tiny yellow jelly fungi.

More little yellow jellies, maybe Dacryopinax spathularia, or Fan-shaped Jelly Fungus. A mighty big name for such a minute organism. Compare them to the pine needles next to them, to get an idea of how tiny they are.

Ooh, what a slimy thing this is! I guess it must be a fungus, but I'm afraid it's too far gone to determine its identity. Fascinating! What an interesting color.

I admire my friend Sue for many reasons, and one of them is that she can SEE things that ordinary mortals cannot. Even knowing exactly where this tiny Spring Peeper was sitting, it would disappear as I stared at it. How on earth did she ever see it in the first place?

And isn't it odd to find a Spring Peeper on the very last day of November? Shouldn't they all be tucked away for the winter? Another blog friend at "You Hike the Giant, too!" found a Spotted Salamander today. I think this spell of balmy weather has the woodland critters thinking it must be spring.

Thanksgiving Day in Vermont

2011-11-30T20:46:00.001-05:00

Oh my, I've been away from my blog a whole week! Yes, it was a busy week, going off to West Dover, Vermont, to spend Thanksgiving Day with my daughter's in-laws, who own this beautiful place overlooking Mt. Snow. Then home Thursday night to entertain my son and his family (a wife and four children) for the rest of the weekend, celebrating my husband's birthday with a big dinner and birthday cake on Sunday. Then I rested for two days. (There's a reason we have our babies when we're young!) Today I returned to the woods for a walk with my friend Sue. But before I post an entry about that, I wanted to post these photos taken in Vermont, where the ground was covered with several inches of snow, despite temperatures climbing into the high 50s.

This handsome old barn has been converted into a guest house and family gathering place, where we sat down to a Thanksgiving feast for about 30 people.

The old farmhouse porch overlooks this exquisite mountain view.

Despite the wintry scene, these apples (Yellow Delicious?) still hung on the trees in the old orchard.

Although our skies were mostly blue, thick clouds rested atop Mt. Snow across the valley.

For the Beauty of the Earth . . .

2011-11-23T21:24:00.001-05:00

Crescent moon at dawn, November 22, 2011

For the beauty of the earth,

For the glory of the skies,

For the love that from our birth

Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour

Of the day and of the night,

Hill and vale and tree and flower,

Sun and moon and stars of light,

Lord of all, to Thee we raise

This, our hymn of grateful praise.

Traditional hymn by Folliott S. Pierpoint, 1864

To all my friends, I wish you the very happiest of Thanksgiving Days.

Jackie Donnelly

Testing My Bryophyte Lessons

2011-11-23T19:46:00.001-05:00

What with holiday preparations and readying my house for weekend guests, I haven't had much time to get outdoors this week. But I was eager to test the lessons I learned from bryologist Nancy Slack last Friday, so I did manage to slip out for an hour on Monday to visit the Bog Meadow Nature Trail just east of Saratoga Springs, a wooded wetland trail that's full of fascination in every season.

The hundreds of decomposing logs lying about in the woods offer many opportunities to study lots of different species of mosses and other bryophytes -- plants that reproduce by spores, rather than by flowers and seeds.

This beautiful Tree Moss (Climacium americanum), though, was growing not on a rotting log, but directly on the ground, probably where a log had completely decomposed in the past. It does look quite a bit like a little tree.

This next moss (Ulota crispa) always grows ON trees, usually birches, marching up and down the trunk like a group of tiny hedgehogs.

I'm not completely sure, but this mat of lacy-leaved moss growing on a downed log could be Thuidium delicatum, or Fern Moss. It certainly resembles little ferns. And those tiny mushrooms resemble little brown ears, so perhaps they are the fungus called Tree Ear. On second thought, they also resemble in color and size copper pennies, so I think they might be Pachyella clypeata, or Copper Penny.

I was pondering what this "moss" might be, when I remembered being stumped by it before up at Pyramid Lake, when botanist Ruth Schottman informed me that it wasn't a moss at all, but rather a leafy liverwort called Lophocolea bidentata.

A closer look reveals the two-toothed leaves that suggest this liverwort's specific name of bidentata, meaning two-toothed.

Not all my finds were botanical. I found this very hairy pod lying on a moss mat, and I wondered if it could be the cocoon of one of our very hairy moths, like a Tussock Moth, which is known to use its hairs to create its cocoon.

When I turned it over, I found that some predator had torn the cocoon open and devoured the contents of that shiny dark carapace. It was hollow inside. I suppose a bird could do that. Bog Meadow Trail is very rich in bird life.

Before I saw this tiny spider on the surface of a cut stump, I saw the bright yellow dots of Lemon Drop Fungus, the largest hardly bigger than the head of a pin. If the spider had not moved, I probably never would have seen it. Really cute!

Trail steward Geoff Bornemann was hard at work rebuilding a section of washed-out trail. Geoff is very diligent about maintaining this wetland trail, which is always threatened with flooding. In some places the flooding is due to beaver dams, but in this section of the trail, the flooding is caused by the uphill homeowner's removal of too many trees from the edge of his property, causing sand and silt to wash down the banks and fill the drainage ditches that Geoff has so carefully dug along the trail. Geoff, I hope you know that lots of happy hikers are very grateful to you for all the work you do to make this trail walkable in every season.

I'll bet that tomorrow some happy eaters will be grateful for all my hard work making pies today. Two cherry, one cherry-apricot, one apple, one pumpkin, and a blueberry coffeecake to have for company over the weekend. The pies I will take to a Thanksgiving feast at in-laws' place in the mountains of Vermont. I surely have many blessings to be thankful for. I wish a very happy holiday feast to all my readers.

Mosses (and More) on the Mountain

2011-11-20T20:27:00.001-05:00

Just because all the flowers are gone by now, that doesn't mean there's nothing for botanizers to seek out in the woods. There's still lots of wonderful stuff to be found, since many mosses, lichens, liverworts, and even some ferns are unaffected by the freezing weather and can be sought all winter long. Of course, it helps to know what you're looking for, and I can't imagine a better teacher than Nancy Slack, shown here examining a clump of Tetraphis pellucida, one of the mosses to be found on nearly every rotting tree stump and fallen log.

A longtime biology professor at Russel Sage College who still teaches botany courses there, Nancy joined me on Friday morning for a hike up the Red Oak Ridge Trail in Moreau Lake State Park. Our destination was a group of limestone caves on the top of the ridge, but we took our time to get there, stopping to take a closer look at many of the fascinating mosses along the way. Here's a closer view of that Tetraphis pellucida, revealing the pellucid leaves that suggest its specific name.

This trio of ferns also caught our attention, since it's unusual to find all three of our common evergreen ferns together in one location. Top left is Intermediate Wood Fern, its leaflets (pinnae) more intricately cut than those of the Marginal Wood Fern on the right. The fern on the bottom is Christmas Fern, distinctive for the Christmas-stocking shape of its individual pinnae.

The Intermediate Wood Fern is named for the way its spore cases (sori) are arranged on the back of the pinnae, midway between the spine and the margin.

The Marginal Wood Fern bears its sori right at the outer edges (margins) of its pinnae. (We have a third wood fern, the Spinulose Wood Fern, but that fern won't be found this time of year, since it's not evergreen.)

When we reached the caves near the top of the ridge, I was eager to show Nancy the boulders where Walking Fern grows. This is a rather uncommon fern that is usually found only on limestone or marble. When I first found this rather unfern-like fern several years ago, there was just a small clump near the cave entrance, but it has since "walked" the whole width of the moss-covered boulder to where Nancy is standing to take its photo.

This photo shows the long thin fronds that produce new plants wherever the tips touch the moss.

On a nearby boulder we found this beautiful moss that looks like tiny palm trees. Its name, Atrichum undulatum, refers to the rippled (undulating) texture of its leaves.

Another particularly beautiful moss is Rhodobryum roseum, which looks like tiny green flowers.

A sure sign that we were among limey rocks was this large patch of Anomodon attenuata, which is found only on limestone or marble.

How odd, then, that on the other side of the very same boulder where we found that Anomodon, we found this wooly-textured Dicranum fulvum, a moss that can grow only on acidic rock, such as quartzite. We surmised, then, that our boulder was made up of at least two different kinds of rocks.

This brown bedraggled-looking stuff is Hedwigia, a moss that is not particular about the acidity of the rocks it grows on.

An interesting aspect of Hedwigia is that, no matter how shriveled and brown it appears, it will plump up and turn green as soon as it is dampened. Nancy picked a sprig and wet it in a nearby stream. A few minutes later it looked like this.

We found a rotting log nearly covered by this shiny reddish-brown liverwort called Nowellia curvifolia. Sorry, but my camera proved too stubborn and would not focus close enough to show the curving leaves that give this pretty liverwort its specific name.

I love how this moss, Hypnum pellescens, has sent out tendrils that trace the cracks in the rock it grows on, creating a very spidery appearance.

I hadn't known that this fern, a Botrychium or Grape Fern, was evergreen, but there it was, lifting its pretty bi-colored frond above the dead leaves of the forest. Nancy has suggested that this is Botrychium lanceolatum, a species that I have never seen before.

A Perfect Frostweed Morning

2011-11-18T22:22:00.001-05:00

I'd been waiting for a morning just like this: clear and still and cold enough for a good hard frost. We had a dusting of snow in Saratoga Springs, but when I arrived at Mud Pond in Moreau, I was pleased to see that no snow had fallen to obscure the frothy curls of frozen sap exuded from the stems of the Frostweed (Helianthemum canadense) that grows prolifically there along a sandy path.

In June, and once again in August, Frostweed bears yellow flowers that are pretty enough but easily overlooked or undiscovered, since they're small and bloom for only a day or so. What really sets this native plant apart are the icy curls that form at the base of its wiry stems during the first few days of freezing temperatures in late fall. These curls are formed when the stems split lengthwise as they freeze, allowing the plant's sap to ooze out, freezing hard in the frigid air. This phenomenon occurs for only a few days, until the plant's sap is spent and the roots freeze. I missed this event last year, so I was really happy to find the process in full swing this morning. I was able to take lots of photos.

I was sure to arrive at this site before the sun rose high enough to warm the plants and melt the frothy ice. Ten minutes after I took this photo, the Frostweed curls had disappeared.

Bright Spots on a Dark Day

2011-11-17T21:21:00.001-05:00

Dark and damp and chilly today. Very Novemberish. And since it's already mid-November, it was time for my monthly inspection of the Nature and Wetland Trails in Moreau Lake State Park, for which I have volunteered to be a trail steward. These trails take me around the back bay of Moreau Lake, a walk I am happy to take in every season, even on dark cold days like today.

My stewarding duties include picking up trash (only one small grocery sack's worth today) and reporting any issues that require trail maintenance. I did find two beaver-felled trees across the trail, plus much other evidence of a burgeouning beaver population around the lake. Can't you just picture a group of them all lined up at this beaver buffet?

Some other creature had enjoyed a shellfish feast along the shore. Otter? Raccoon? Mink?

Striding briskly along at the edge of the lake, I was brought to a halt by the sight of this marvelously encrusted log, inhabited by a remarkable variety of mosses and lichens of many different colors and shapes. It required a closer look.

What a beautiful miniature forest! I can tell you that this is a Cladonia lichen, but I cannot tell you what species. Even experts sometimes have to use chemical tests to tell them apart.

There appear to be at least three different kinds of Cladonia in this clump. Is that brown stuff they're growing out of another lichen or is it a moss? Or maybe a liverwort?

I had my camera's macro lens take a closer look.

And even closer. Looks like a moss to me, with all that leafyness.

Even though the day was dark and gray, and the trees are now bare or brown, bright spots of color could still be found, such as this vivid sprig of Highbush Blueberry leaves . . .

. . . or this spray of Red Maple leaves still a brilliant yellow.

Dewberry leaves looked especially lovely against the silvery gray bark of a fallen limb.

Ah, but nothing equals the fiery glow of Meadowsweet, in tones of orange and yellow and rose.

Among fungi, it would be hard to surpass the Cinnabar Polypore for vivid orange.

And the underside with its many pores is even more vividly orange.

The days darken so early now, especially when it's as heavily overcast as it was today. As I hurried along the shore of Mud Pond to return to where I had parked my car, several flocks of geese came sailing down to rest for the night.

The forecast calls for freezing temperatures tonight, maybe a little snow. Thinking of winter approaching, I'm reassured when I see the bright green leaves of Trailing Arbutus, which will happily spend the winter under the snow, then shelter the flowers that are among the earliest to bloom in the spring.

Hepatica leaves will do the same, wintering under the snow to be among the first to catch the nourishing sunlight come the spring. They have already donned their fur coats, in preparation for the winter to come.

Paddling a Cranberry Bog

2011-11-15T21:20:00.001-05:00

It's a good thing my canoe was still on my car. When Evelyn called to invite me to join her for cranberry hunting at Lens Lake today, all I had to do was hop in my car and head up north to this isolated boggy lake. Lying about 5 winding, climbing miles west of Stony Creek, Lens Lake has a convoluted shoreline made even more intricate by hundreds of acres of sphagnum mats, their golden moss carpets embroidered by the dark purplish leaves of thousands upon thousands of wild cranberry plants.

The colorful bog mats added a warm glow to an otherwise dark and chilly lake, as we skirted the mats in our search for elusive cranberries. Despite the obvious abundance of cranberry leaves everywhere, only a few of the mats had plants that were bearing fruit. When we found a fruiting patch, we pulled our canoes up onto the mats and climbed out to crouch in the soggy, spongy moss to gather the berries.

Sometimes, the small red fruits were hidden by the color of the sphagnum itself.

They were much easier to detect on mats where the sphagnum was golden.

I was intrigued by the tiny red "buds" on the leaf stems of the cranberries. Could these be the buds of next summer's flowers? I just don't know.

Sometimes I would reach to pluck what I thought was a berry nestled down in the moss, only to discover that the round red ball was the tip of an emerging baby Pitcher Plant.

This little rotting stump was filigreed with pale green Bog Lycopodium and crowned with the spent seed pods of a thin-stalked plant I do not recognize.

Here's a closer view of those three-parted pods. Perhaps some reader will recognize them and tell us what they are.

These neat little heaps of what look like green corn kernels are actually the seeds of Arrow Arum, what's left of the fruits after the stems and leaves have rotted away..

All around us, fluffy heads of Cottongrass swayed in the wind.

Evelyn called my attention to this site where some creature had returned again and again to deposit its feces.

A closer look at the feces revealed that it was made up mostly of fish scales and bones and little bits of crayfish shells. The piles were too big to be those made by minks, so we surmised that we had come upon an otter's latrine.

And because we could be reasonably sure that this was otter poop, Evelyn felt pretty confident that this adjacent moss was the quite uncommon Pennsylvania Dung Moss (Splachnum pennsylvanicum), which grows only on the feces of otter and a few other creatures, as well as on some kinds of bones and animal cadavers.

I brought home a sample of the moss to show to a bryologist friend for confirmation, and I also was able to take a macro photo revealing the tiny starry growths at the tips of the fruiting bodies. Isn't this beautiful? And I would have walked right by it, if Evelyn had not pointed it out to me.

Now, not everybody I know would get all excited about finding otter poop. I count myself very lucky to have some friends who do, and who share their enthusiasm with me. Thanks, Evelyn, for a fun afternoon's adventure. And thanks, too, for sharing your cranberry harvest.

Slipping and Sliding Up the Cliffs

2011-11-13T20:15:00.001-05:00

It was really a dumb idea. "Let's take the cliff route up to the overlook," I said to my husband this afternoon, and being a game guy, he agreed. It's usually an interesting option for hiking up to the Spring overlook in Moreau Lake State Park, an alternative route that leaves the well-marked and maintained trail and offers a bit of a scramble up the steep mountainside and along some towering, spring-dampened, moss-encrusted cliffs. It's always just a little bit risky, what with jutting boulders and hidden hollows for snagging a foot, but today, with the forest floor thickly carpeted with slippery oak leaves, it felt like trying to climb a mountain made of glass. The only way to progress, even while crawling, was to clear the layers of leaves down to the dirt, with every step. Exhausting and nerve-wracking!

Obviously, we made it, but we had to stop and catch our breath whenever we found a relatively level spot, like the one my husband stands in here.

We felt a great relief when we reached the official, more level, trail that leads to a rocky outcropping overlooking the Hudson River far below.

Here we could sit and rest a while, enjoying the view of the river and mountains and forest.

Most of the colorful leaves and flowers have fallen or faded, but we could still find little patches of vivid beauty, like this Dewberry leaf resting on a mound of diverse lichens speckled with scarlet.

These purple-viened Foamflower plants provided a strikingly colorful contrast to the tobacco-brown of the fallen oak and beech leaves.

Oh, look what we found! A solitary little Bluet, blue as the sky with a sun-yellow center, blooming away in the middle of the path. What a brave little beauty, still putting forth blooms, even after several killing frosts.

Late Fall on the Fen

2011-11-12T20:27:00.001-05:00

"Come on in! The water's fine!" And Sue was right, the water was fine for a paddle through the Glen Lake Fen today. Too cold for a swim, of course, but with high water filling channels now clear of frost-killed lily pads, we could paddle way, way back into the fen to parts we could not slog through in high summer.

Who knows how far we could have paddled, if we hadn't run into this beaver dam? Sure, we could have climbed out and hauled our boats over, but it was just too chilly this morning to risk a possible tumble into that cold, cold water. So we turned around here, deep into the fen in an area marked by a number of beaver lodges and many beaver-felled trees. Sue just couldn't stop remarking about what a great turtle habitat this will be, come summer.

I am more grateful than I can say to have a friend who knows how to amble slowly along a boggy shore, poking into the reeds, trying to identify the remnants of summer's flowers, stopping to photograph the odd anomalous aspect, and just generally reveling in the delights of a bright crisp day to glide along on a beautiful waterway before the ice closes in.

We explored the shore of a Tamarack-studded island, noting the presence of such bog-loving plants as this Bog Rosemary, distinctively purple against the brown-grass background.

We found just one Pitcher Plant, ruby-red in that cold blue water, its single flower still erect and intact.

It was Sue who noticed a whole bank of Bunchberry plants, their leaves the most radiant shades of pinky-purple against a carpet of moss and lichens.

Judging from all the rose hips along the banks, the air must surely have been filled with fragrance in summer.

The remains of Canada Lilies stood out, with their stout pods split open to reveal neatly stacked layers of dark red seeds. (On second thought, these could be the pods of Blue Flag instead.)

Smooth Sumac is now in its glory, its crimson berry clusters held high against the dun background. What lovely Christmas decorations they would make, adorning sprays of evergreens! I wonder how long they keep that gorgeous color. Do they darken with winter's freeze?

For part of our journey today, we were accompanied by a soaring Osprey, who wheeled overhead, then flapped away, only to return shortly to settle into a tree and observe our approach. I sure wish I had a telephoto lens. I can make out that Osprey at the very center of this photo, only because I know he is there. Of course, he flew away again as we drew abreast. A breathtaking sight!

Indian Summer Idyll

2011-11-09T22:07:00.001-05:00

It was short but sweet, this stretch of balmy weather, with soft warm air and an autumn sun pouring down its slanting golden light. The forecasts call for blustery rain tomorrow, more bluster for Friday with maybe some snow, so I'm glad I dropped everything to spend the past few days outdoors, either on foot or afloat. Monday's paddle on the Hudson was followed on Tuesday afternoon by a walk around Moreau Lake, its silvery water still as glass, reflecting the mountains and sky.

Although a thin cloud cover filled the sky by the time I reached the far shore of the lake, the richly red blueberry bushes glowed as if lit by a light of their own.

Wouldn't they make a beautiful wallpaper pattern?

To complement that wallpaper, perhaps a sofa upholstered in green velvet the same shade as that on this fungus.

I don't know any other insect this beautiful baby blue color with such a fluffy little fanny. This is the winged form of those Wooly Alder Aphids I found clustered on an alder twig along the river.

The sky was as blue as that aphid's back when I slipped my canoe into the Hudson today, entering the water behind a sheltering island, where the breeze that ruffled the open river never touched the glassy surface back here.

My little boat moved as silently as a snake, as I wound my way around rocky promontories and into the quiet coves that form the shoreline along this part of the river.

I found the same stand of coppery understory beeches I photographed some years ago, and try as I might, I could not reproduce that photograph (shown below). The sunlight today created too many stark shadows, so I couldn't achieve the same diffuse glow of my original photo, which remains one of my very favorites.

I found these speckled Red Oak leaves enchanting, as they floated over sky-blue water and above some pretty little underwater plants with green leaves and tiny pink flowers.

What plant could this be, that blooms underwater? It sure looks like some kind of Smartweed, but I don't know of any Smartweed species that flowers while actually submerged under several inches of water. Water Smartweed blooms can be inundated in times of flood, but mostly their flowers protrude above the surface. These were growing quite happily down under the water, and they were not evident in this cove during the summer.

This rocky promontory I call Picnic Point, since several of its boulders have nice flat surfaces for holding a picnic lunch. Also, those two blazing red shrubs provide handfuls of juicy sweet blueberries during the summer.

I was curious to see if I could find the seed pods of Great St. Johnswort, a rather unusual flower that grows on one of the islands along this stretch, and nowhere else that I know of. Sure enough, there they were, right where I found the blooming flowers last summer. The fat pods had split open already, so I'm guessing the seeds have been spilled. Let's hope they find a congenial spot to sprout. I did pick one pod that still had some tiny flecks inside, and I plan to give it to someone who might cultivate the seeds and perhaps increase the population of this beautiful and increasingly rare flower. (To see a photo of this flower in bloom, click here to go to my post for July 25.)

Late Fall Along the River

2011-11-07T21:57:00.000-05:00

The Hudson gleamed silver under a pearl-gray sky when I slipped my canoe into its quiet water this morning for what may be my final paddle of the season. But maybe not. I am very reluctant to store my boat away for the winter, so long as the river's beauty still beckons. Here was the view today from the boat launch site along Spier Falls Road in Moreau. The beeches and oaks still hold their leaves, turning the forested mountainsides into a crazy quilt of colors.

Despite several snowfalls and many frosty mornings, I had to get back on the river at least one more time, to look for these amazing creatures that cling to the alders leaning over the water. These are Wooly Alder Aphids, their "fur" a white waxy substance extruded from their tiny bodies. Yes, they do suck the sap from the alder twigs, but they never occur in numbers large enough to do real damage to the trees. I found only three small colonies today along a half-mile stretch of the Hudson.

Except for the beeches and oaks, most trees have shed their leaves by now. This is true for American Hornbeams as well, but their clusters of winged seeds still dangled from the branches.

The seed pods of Hop Hornbeams also still clung to the trees, dangling like ornaments over the water.

Witch Hazel has shed its leaves but not its flowers, which today were unfurling like yellow stars against the dark green background of conifers.

One of my destinations today was a cluster of three small islands that lie just upstream from the boat launch site. I have my own names for them -- Birch, Azalea, and Sweet Fern -- indicating the preponderance of plants that grow on each.

I would guess it's obvious why I called one of these islands Birch. The one I'm standing on is Azalea Island, named for the many Early Azalea shrubs that bloom here in May, scenting the air with their sweet fragrance. As these rosy-red shrubs reveal, I could have called it Blueberry Island, too, except blueberries and huckleberries grow profusely on all three islands.

One shrub of Highbush Blueberry was especially vivid today.

Sweet Fern Island lies just upstream from Azalea Island, across a narrow rock-filled channel.

I noticed the Sweet Fern had already sprouted the catkins that will winter over to bloom in the spring.

Bright-yellow Meadowsweet provided a stunning contrast to the rich red of the Silky Dogwood that surrounded it.

What a charming little cluster of Wintergreen, set off so prettily by a green mosaic of lichens and mosses! I find it somehow reassuring to think that, even as winter closes in, these little plants will all keep their vivid colors under the snow, to greet us again with their beauty unchanged come spring.

The Bog in Autumn

2011-11-02T23:37:00.000-04:00

November 2, All Soul's Day, the Day of the Dead. But it wasn't at all a dismal day, what with the brilliant sunshine and bright blue sky, a frosty morning with the promise of warmth to come. We couldn't have had a nicer day, Sue and I, to revisit our favorite bog near Lake George, to see how the typical bog plants there were changing with autumn's chill. So we pulled on our rubber bog-trompers, pushed through a hedge, and headed out across the sphagnum mat, surrounded on all sides by plants of spectacular color.

I don't think I've ever seen Winterberry so abundant or so vividly colored.

The Tamaracks' golden glow was intensified in early morning sun.

Just looking at all that gorgeous color brought big smiles to our faces. I would say that Sue looks very happy to be here.

The fluffy tufts of Cottongrass looked as if they were floating above the bog mat as they swayed and bobbed on their slender stems.

The predominant plant of this particular bog is Leatherleaf, which, this time of year, carpets the ground with colors like stained glass.

Blueberry leaves with the sun behind them resembled tongues of flame.

One leaf in particular caught the sunlight and glowed like a Christmas light.

Down close to the sphagnum mat, ripe cranberries dangled like tiny Japanese lanterns.

Where sunshine had not yet reached the ground, ruby-red sphagnum was sparkling with frosty ice crystals, as was this little brown leaf, edged with rime.

Although frozen solid, this pretty pink mushroom retained its distinctive color.

An orange jelly fungus had found a home in an old sawn log now covered with moss and lichens.

The Tamaracks and Black Spruces of the bog were veritable lichen farms, their branches festooned with beard lichens, mostly, but Sue found this one carnation-like clump of ruffly lichen, its pale green "petals" outlined with a darker hue. Very pretty.

This Bartonia was quite a surprise find, a tiny plant hiding out in the grass. Not very common to begin with, it's a miracle we ever saw it. Although dried out now and gone to seed, it actually looks pretty much the same as when it was newly in bloom with minute yellow flowers that barely emerge from its sepals. The five-angled stem is what clinched the ID.

After walking about the bog for an hour or so, sinking up to our ankles at times in the ice-crystalled moss, our rubber-booted feet began to feel too cold for comfort. So we headed back to our car, changed into our shoes, and stopped off for a walk at nearby Lake George.

Its surface unmarred by the roaring speedboats of summer, the lake today was as lovely and serene as a lake could be, dotted with islands and surrounded by mountains that merged with the blue of the sky.

Walking along the beach, we were enjoying the ripples of golden light cast on the sandy bottom, when we stopped to puzzle over this anomalous commotion in the water. After watching its upwelling motion for a while, we decided it must be a spring.

Here's an apt image to mark the Day of the Dead. In a nearby park, we found an abundant patch of Partridgeberry with its glossy red fruits and dainty evergreen leaves. As I knelt to take this photo, I was surprised to find the dried remains of several millipedes curled among the leaves.

Even more surprising was finding this sprightly Dandelion. In fact, we saw a good number of these sunny yellow blooms starring the green grass of a lawn. Considered a quintessential spring flower, the Dandelion will often bloom again in autumn, when the length of the day equals that of early spring. As winter's dark and cold begin to descend, it's nice to have this little reminder that spring will again return.

October Snow

2011-10-28T23:46:00.002-04:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, with towering conifers laden with snow and needles of ice underfoot, where frost has thrust up from the sand.

The leaves of Shining Sumac were Santa-suit red, trimmed with glistening snow.

And yet, the foliage colors of autumn still glowed along the edge of Mud Pond in Moreau Lake State Park this morning, where Sue and I met to walk around the pond.

We were hoping to find some Frostweed exuding its frothy curls of ice, but instead found it buried under a thick coat of snow.

The warm glowing gold of Beech leaves presented quite a contrast to the icy blue of the snow.

On the western bank of the pond, all traces of snow had melted away in the warmth of the rising sun. That sun had just cleared the hills behind us and was only beginning to cast its rays on the beaver lodge, which still bore a dusting of snow. Although we found many freshly felled trees, we did not see any beavers moving around this morning. We did, however, enjoy the antics of a solitary otter cutting through the still water, teasing us into trying to take its photo, only to dive each time we raised our cameras.

While we stood there watching for the otter, a small flock of Canada Geese came sailing in. We could hear their musical calls long before they circled the pond and then splashed down for a landing.

A killing frost has finally shriveled most of the flowering plants, but the leaves of Checkered Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera tesselata) remain fresh and green all winter. Sue was eager to show me a patch of this native orchid that she had only recently discovered.

Sue thought these fruits might be those of a Hackberry tree. That's a tree with which I am not at all familiar, so I couldn't say. I would have guessed they were some kind of viburnum, maybe Nannyberry, although the leaves are more like those of Witherod. The berries are certainly attractive, dark-blue clusters dangling from rosy-red pedicels.

At least I had no doubt about the Maple-leaved Viburnum that spread its rosy leaves all over the forest floor.

Sue got right down on that forest floor to capture a shot of viburnum leaves backlit by the rising sun.

I was intrigued by this pebbly growth on the trunk of a beech tree. I have no idea what it could be, whether fungus or slime mold. We've had an amazing year for such organisms, which are stimulated to fruit during years of abundant rainfall. I wonder if we will have abundant snowfall this winter. The snowfall certainly started early enough, and I heard we are likely to get much more tomorrow.

Not a Fit Night Out for Man Nor Beast

2011-10-27T19:54:00.000-04:00

Wet and cold and snowy tonight. I think our Bebert and Cleo are lucky to have a warm dry bed indoors. (Even if this bed is getting kind of small for them, they still want to share it together). Their feral mom and dad come by to eat and they sure look cold and damp. But they still run and hide when we bring the food bowls out to the porch. Too bad. We'd be glad to welcome them indoors.

I haven't been outdoors for a hike all week. Tomorrow the sun is supposed to shine, and the day should dawn below freezing. I'm meeting Sue at Mud Pond in the morning to look for Frostweed curls. I'm really looking forward to getting outside in the open air, no matter how chilly.

Up the Mountain, Along the Ridge

2011-10-24T01:00:00.002-04:00

The weather forecast for Sunday was for sunshine and clear blue skies all day. Well, the forecast was wrong. It was cloudy and cool until late in the day. It didn't matter, though, as I hiked up the Western Ridge Trail in Moreau Lake State Park, where the golden leaves overhead shed a glow that seemed as warm and bright as the missing sunshine.

I was actually grateful for the cool temperature, since the trail starting up the mountain was steep enough to have me huffing and puffing and sweating by the time I reached the first overlook. Most of the time, the fully-leaved trees obscured the view of the Hudson valley below, but at one point the view opened up to reveal the Spier Falls Dam in the distance and the Luzerne Mountains rising to the north.

I followed the Western Ridge Trail to where it intersected with the Ridge Run Trail, then turned to follow that second trail as it led to the highest point in the park, an open area where the bedrock emerges in massive outcroppings.

These boulders are populated by many different mosses and lichens, and I was hoping to once again find the tiny attractive lichen called Orange Rock Posy, which I had found here several times in the past. Here's a photo of a patch of it I found two years ago come December.

Well, I searched and I searched, but I could not find a trace of Orange Rock Posy. What a disappointment! One of the great pleasures of lichen-hunting is that most lichens look pretty much the same in every season and from year to year. Perhaps I just can't see them anymore, with my failing eyesight, and they are very small, after all. For sure, I will keep looking.

In the meantime, I did find another interesting growth, most likely a lichen, that looked like a pinkish stain studded with tiny red bumps. Maybe some of my more knowledgeable friends will tell me what it is.

My disappointment at not finding my lichen was soon assuaged when I raised my eyes to enjoy the beauty all around me, where Low Blueberry spread a scarlet carpet across the rocks.

Standing on top of one of the largest outcroppings, I could see through the trees to tier upon tier of mountains rising across the river.

A pair of small brown birds kept flitting just out of range of my camera's zoom lens. Since they made not a sound and sang not a note, I couldn't identify them by ear, and my photo is not clear enough to show me much detail. My guess is some kind of thrush. But shouldn't they have migrated long ago? Perhaps this prolonged warm weather is keeping them here.

I found this miniature clump of Polypody adorable, especially with that tiny hemlock cone nestled in among the little fronds.

Now, how did that get there?! It looks like a chunk of rock detached from an overhanging cliff and hurtled down to embed itself in the bedrock. Except that there is no looming cliff nearby. Very mysterious!

Wow! I guess you could definitely say that this Maple-leaved Viburnum was "shocking" pink. The day was growing late and the forest was starting to darken when I came upon this arrangement of rock, ferns, moss, and leaves, just seeming to glow in the gloom. Such a perfect final note to my walk through this beautiful woods.

A Quick Walk Along the Creek

2011-10-22T22:39:00.001-04:00

Some days I don't have time for a multi-hour excursion to a nature site, but I still crave the sounds of rushing water and the rustling of leaves underfoot when I go for just a quick walk. That's when I head out to Spa State Park right here in Saratoga Springs and walk along Geyser Creek. One of the prominent features of this creek is an actual geyser, seen here spouting out of its dome of accumulated mineral deposits.

I follow the path along this creek to where it spills from a culvert in the steep bank. There's something enchanting to me about creeks and rivers, always flowing relentlessly along on their journey toward the sea. Geyser Creek will flow into the Kayaderosseras Creek a mile or so away, and the Kayaderosseras will then convey this water into Saratoga Lake, which has its outlet in Fish Creek, which then empties into the Hudson River near Schuylerville, and the water continues all the way to New York City, where it joins the Atlantic Ocean. I wonder how long that journey would take?

When I turn from the culvert and look downstream, I can see another white dome of mineral deposit, formed by a spring trickling down the bank, leaving massive accumulations of minerals behind.

Here's a closer view of those mineral deposits.

Spa Park contains many mineral springs where a thirsty hiker can stop to take a refreshing taste. Not everybody enjoys that taste, but I find it interesting. Each of the springs tastes a little different, some with more iron or calcium or carbon or salt than others, but none contain sulfur, I've heard. It's obvious that this spring contains plenty of iron, as evidenced by the rust that lines the basin.

Despite the continued warm weather with no frost as yet, very few flowers are still in bloom. This pretty bunch of asters was the exception.

Seed-hunting for Ed

2011-10-19T23:43:00.002-04:00

My friend Ed Miller is the creator and curator of a remarkable collection of woody plants at the famous Landis Arboretum in Esperance, New York. Ed's goal for his collection is to have it contain every tree and shrub and woody vine that is native to New York State, and I guess he must be missing a couple, since he asked me if I would collect some seeds from the Black Tupelo and Sassafras trees that grow in the places I regularly paddle. Of course, I was happy to oblige, both because I would love to do Ed a favor, and also because I'm glad for any excuse to revisit the lovely banks of the Hudson River at Moreau. Especially on such a beautiful day as it was yesterday.

On foot instead of afloat, my first destination was a rocky promontory I call Bear's Bathtub, where I remembered a number of Sassafras trees in beautiful bloom last spring. Surely, with all of those flowers then, there would now be fruits. Right?

Well, there were lots of Sassafras trees out there, dressed in their splendid autumn colors, but not a single fruit could I find on any of their branches. Had the birds consumed them all, or had they already fallen from the trees because it was so late in the season?

I went back into my photo files to retrieve this photo of a Sassafras fruit I took almost exactly a year ago on October 17. The trees were full of these fruits last year at this time, but for some reason they did not produce fruit this year. I've heard that Sassafras can be like that. I'll have to keep looking elsewhere.

My next destination was a second promontory I call Rippled Rocks Point, where a number of Black Tupelos grow in a marshy area nearby.

Approaching the site through the woods, I could, from some distance away, see the red glow of the Tupelo branches backlit by the sun, where they hung down low over the water.

These trees had been laden with fruits when Ed and I paddled under them just ten days ago, but by now the birds had nearly stripped the trees bare of them. I did manage to find a few, however, and I collected all I could reach for Ed.

My seeds collected, I was happy to wander around on the promontory, where blueberry bushes had found a foothold among the rocks. Does any shrub turn a more exquisite color of red than Highbush Blueberry?

Even the stems and the buds for next year's growth take on this vivid color.

There is one little blueberry bush out there that, every year, produces flowers as late as November. I scrambled out onto the rocks at the very end of the point and, sure enough, there they were! I wonder why a plant would do that, blooming too late to ever produce a fruit.

Heading back through the woods, I was dazzled by the sight of this fallen Red Maple leaf caught on a twig, lit up like a magic lantern by a ray of sun that penetrated the gloom of a stand of Hemlocks.

This yellow leaf (maybe a Hornbeam?) also caught my eye, first, because it was dangling in midair from a strand of spider silk, and second, because its yellow color was so beautifully set off by the lichen-covered bark behind it, its color like that of verdigris on bronze.

More Adventures at Pyramid Lake

2011-10-19T16:29:00.001-04:00

Ever since noted botanist Ruth Schottman joined me for a botanical adventure at Pyramid Lake last July, we've been meaning to return to further explore together this beautiful wilderness lake in the Adirondacks. We finally got there on Monday morning and found we had the whole lake to ourselves, with not another human soul around. Although the day proved too windy for comfortable paddling in our tandem canoe, we were happy enough to leave our boat on shore and set off on a couple of hikes through the woods and around the lake.

Not only is Ruth a delightful hiking companion, she is also a walking encyclopedia of botanical knowledge. We hadn't walked far before she spotted this interesting anomalous clump in an alder along the shore and didn't even have to check a guide to give it a name. This is Taphrina, she promptly told me, an alder gall caused by a fungus that affects just the female flowers.

I knew right away this was going to be fun and that I would learn a lot from my companion. There are so many fascinating phenomena in the woods in every season, adding interest to every walk, even long after the flowering plants have shriveled and died. Most mosses, for example, stay fresh and green all year, including this Bartramia pomiformis, with its long silky leaves and little brown "pomiform" (apple-shaped) fruiting bodies.

On the other hand, most mushrooms are really ephemeral, disappearing almost as fast as they arise. We were lucky to spot this handsomely studded, somewhat slimy Pholiota clump, sharing its cut-log surface with several other (unidentified) fungi.

Our morning hike took us along a trail that was bordered by huge boulders that were covered with many different kinds of lichens. This aptly named foliose lichen called Toadskin Rock Tripe (Lasallia papulosa) was sharing its boulder with smooth-skinned rock tripes not visible in this photo.

Although this Dog Lichen (Peltigera polydactyla) often grows on woody substrates, it can sometimes be found on boulders, too. I have read that it gets its name from having once been used as a (futile!) treatment for rabies in dogs, but I remember its name from the little brown fruiting bodies folded over like dogs' ears. Its dark, almost black, thallus is a clue that this lichen associates with cyanobacteria as well as the fungi and algae that typically constitute all lichens.

I'm going to have to get back to Ruth to see if she can name this red-brown liverwort. It looks similar to the Frullania liverworts that grow on trees, but this was growing on the face of a boulder.

Another liverwort I don't know the name of, this one growing on tree bark and of a bright green color.

As our trail climbed higher and higher above the lake, we soon came to lookout point where we could see the majestic Pharaoh Mountain rising to the south.

Our trail reached its summit in a rocky outcropping where we stood and gazed out at the beauty of the lake and surrounding forests and mountains, all part of the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness Area. How lucky I am to have access to such splendid wilderness, just an hour's drive from my home!

We retraced our steps back to Pyramid Life Center, where we had left our car and our lunch bags. One of the structures that make up the retreat center at Pyramid Lake is this charming little meditation hut right on the water. Here, we could take shelter from the wind and eat our midday meal in comfort while enjoying the view.

After lunch, we set off in another direction, choosing a trail that leads toward Eagle Lake just a mile or so to the east.

Our trail crossed several woodland streams still rushing with water as if it were springtime snowmelt, instead of autumn. I could stand and gaze at such miniature musical waterfalls for a long, long time.

This woodland trail offered abundant sightings of fungi, including whole logs full of Angel's Wings (Pleurocybella porrigens), a good edible if we had found it a day or so earlier.

Another good edible is Late Fall Oyster Mushroom (Panellus serotinus), which was still fresh and firm when we found it. I hadn't planned on cooking dinner that night (it takes a long slow stewing), or I might have collected a mess to bring home.

We were struck by the beautiful rich red-brown tops of these shelf fungi, possibly Artist's Conk (Ganoderma applanatum).

Here's the smooth, white underside of that Artist's Conk, with a flesh that is easily bruised. Detailed drawings can be etched into that flesh, which will retain those drawings permanently after drying.

Boy, I don't know what this one is! At first I thought it was Ochre Spreading Tooth, but on closer inspection that orange stuff doesn't look like teeth, and I can't find anything in my mushroom books that fits that description. Whatever it is, it was quite colorful.

I remember finding Ravenel's Stinkhorn (Phallus ravenelii) along this same trail last year, so I wasn't surprised to find it again, surrounded by flies attracted to its fetid odor.

Such a lush bright-green patch of feathery moss! It looked familiar, but I couldn't remember its name, although Ruth knew it right away. This is Stair-step Moss (Hylocomium splendens), a boreal species so named for its habit of growing a single layer every year, the new growth sprouting from the middle of the old.

Yet another liverwort, this one decorating a rotting log with its pretty bright-green branchings. At first I thought it was a moss, but Ruth corrected me. A closer inspection with a magnifier revealed it to be the leafy liverwort Lophocolea bidentata.

Here's a view as close as I could get with my camera. If you click on this photo, you might see the two-teethed leaves that give this liverwort its specific name of bidentata.

this is a test

2011-10-19T01:07:00.002-04:00

Blogger erased all my post tonight.

Today I Stayed Home

2011-10-15T20:50:00.001-04:00

Wild and crazy weather today, so I just stayed home. First sun, then rain, then sun, then rain -- and all day long a roaring wind, with a brief burst of gale-force gusts in late afternoon. My hopes for having my Monkshood stand up straight were blown away with that wind. Every year I mean to stake them, but then I forget. And then I regret it. I do love the blast of radiant blue they add to the garden, long after every other flower has faded. This is IT, folks: the last of this year's flowers to bloom.

I'm not sure which species of Monkshood I obtained from a wildflower nursery years ago. It could be New York Monkshood (Aconitum noveboracense), since, floppy though they may be, the stems are stouter than the sprawling, weak stems of Wild Monkshood (A. uncinatum). Or perhaps it could be a cultivated species I've never heard of. Whatever the species, they're all extremely poisonous, I've read, and should never be planted where children or pets could get at them. The same goes for cut flowers in vases. On one alarmist website I read today, I was warned that I could be gravely poisoned if I just touched the plant with a cut on my hand. Uh oh, my cuticles are always ragged and bleeding, and I did grasp this flower stalk to hold it up for its photo. So far so good, though. It's been hours, and I'm still alive.

I did wash my hands carefully, though, when I came inside. I sure would not want to poison my darling kitties, and I can't keep my hands off them, they are so snuggly and soft. They're getting very big now, nearly quadruple what they weighed when I stole them away from their feral mom almost two months ago.

I realize I seem to only post photos of the kittens sleeping. That's because, when they're awake, they're never still, flying around the house like cattail fluff in the wind, always zooming out of focal length.

Searching for Autumn Coralroot

2011-10-15T00:54:00.001-04:00

It rained this morning, then again this afternoon and tonight. We were lucky, Sue and I, that the rain stopped for the entire duration of our hike today on the Red Oak Ridge Trail at Moreau Lake State Park. The lake was smooth as glass under a pearl-gray sky, and wisps of mist were rising from the mountains when we parked our cars by the shore and set off up the trail. This time of year, this trail should instead be called the Golden Glow Trail, since its preponderance of Sugar Maples and Shagbark Hickory turn the most amazing yellow, making the woods appear sunlit on even the darkest days.

We would have gone on our hike today even if it had been raining, since our goal was to find Autumn Coralroot (Corallorhiza odontorhiza), a little orchid becoming increasingly rare in the northeast, before a hard freeze could destroy any evidence of its existence along this trail. We had seen it growing here in September, although at the time we didn't have any idea what it was. Then I saw a photo of it on a Facebook post by A.L. Gibson (who also writes a wonderful nature blog called "The Natural Treasures of Ohio"), and there was the answer to our mystery plant. We next discovered that there was no record of it growing in Saratoga County, so we were determined to collect a specimen (or at least to mark the site so we could collect it next year when it bloomed). But how to find it again, that was the challenge. Not only is it quite small, but its spent flower stalk is also exactly the color of the leaves and twigs littering the forest floor by the brook where we remembered it growing.

Our Autumn Coralroot was well past blooming, but we marked its site so we can return to collect an herbarium specimen when it blooms next year.

So just guess who saw it first. That's right, our eagle-eyed Sue. And she found it growing in a spot we hadn't found it before, as well as in its original location. That woman has the most amazing eyesight! I never, ever would have seen it without her pointing it out.

Sue also spotted this little golden-eyed Wood Frog hiding among the fallen leaves.

Again, it was Sue who discovered and pointed out to me the lovely chrysanthemum pattern on the inside of these acorn caps.

But even I, with my compromised eyes, could pick out the dozens of little Red Efts wriggling across the rain-damp path today. This tiny one was the smallest I've ever seen.

Descending the path toward a small rock-lined stream, we were struck by the lacy loveliness of the understory trees, the golden-leaved Striped Maple and Witch Hazel.

How odd, that, when all the other leaves are turning bright colors, these little scalloped disks (I think they are Water Pennywort) have turned a ghostly white, very striking against the dark green moss.

Ooh, doesn't this look gory! It's a clump of Wood Ear fungus I plucked to take home to add to a stir-fry, and it oozed blood-red liquid all over my hand. (Sue took this photo for me.) What's funny is that, in addition to being an edible fungus quite commonly found in Chinese food, the Wood Ear is also believed to have blood-thinning properties. Could this belief have been suggested by the fungus's own bloody-looking fluid?

Update: Well, I sure was wrong about this one. It's not Wood Ear (Auricularia auricula) at all, but rather another fungus called Jelly Leaf or Leafy Jelly (Tremella foliacea). I didn't eat it, after all, but I wouldn't have poisoned myself either way, since this one is edible, too. Sort of. Kind of rubbery. As I've said before, never eat a fungus you're not absolutely sure of, and I wasn't sure about this one.

More mushrooms, these ones very small (the tallest one maybe two inches) and the most wonderful shade of lime green.

These next mushrooms turned out to be quite a find. I sure wish I had picked a whole bunch (there were lots of them growing nearby), because when I got home and looked up what they are, I learned they are called Sweet Tooth (Hydnum umbilicatum), one of the choicest edibles. And so they were, with a fragrance and flavor similar to Chanterelles when I fried my two samples in butter.

There's a similarly choice and related toothed mushroom called Hedgehog Mushroom (H. repandum), but that one has its teeth descending the stalk and often has a small knob on top. My mushroom has a deep depression like a belly-button on top (hence the specific name, umbilicatum). Maybe with all the rain we are having again, I will find many more of this delicious fungus. I sure hope so.

Autumn Splendor Arrives at Last!

2011-10-12T23:47:00.002-04:00

Let it be a lesson to me, never to lose faith in Mother Nature. I was afraid that autumn's glory would miss us this year. The weather stayed so warm and so wet for so long, our trees just kept pumping out the chlorophyll, and our woods stayed green well into the first week of October. What little color there was looked muted and dull. Well, I don't know what happened to trigger the sudden change, but almost overnight, it seems, our forests have burst into flaming colors. I went to Moreau Lake State Park today to walk the trail I've volunteered to steward, and I was just struck dumb with delight to see such spectacular foliage.

Happily, my trail soon took me down to the shore along the back bay of the lake, where the trees' beauty was doubled by their reflections in the still water.

Even such homely weeds as Spreading Dogbane were dressed in their season's finest.

Little seedling shrubs of Red Oak had leaves that lived up to their name.

The White Oaks rivaled the Red Oaks for intense color.

After following a muddy section of trail around marshy wetlands, where Phragmites towered over my head and obscured my view of the lake, it was such a pleasure to step out onto a sandy beach and gaze out at all that serene expanse of water.

Red Maples and golden Beeches intermingled in a riot of color.

This little Red Maple shrub resembled a blazing fire.

Sassafras leaves turn a hue that is like no other.

Shadblow, too, can be promptly identified by its coppery orange leaves this time of year.

And then there's Maple-leaved Viburnum, which adds its unmistakeable pinky-purple to the forest mosaic.

My trail circuit nearly completed, I sat for a while to take in the view from this prospect. I had half-filled a trash bag with beer cans and candy wrappers and styrofoam cups, and felt astounded that folks could be so blind to the beauty around them that they would sully it so. I guess some people just spread squalor wherever they go.

Witch Hazel was the only flower I found blooming today, aside from a single blossom of Small-flowered Gerardia that my camera refused to focus on. Those long ribbony petals will curl up into balls when cold weather comes, unfurling whenever the sun comes back to warm them. I have found Witch Hazel blooms as late as December, if the weather is mild.

No flower has seeds as spectacular as Common Milkweed. How I love to watch their silky tufts waft on the breeze. There was no breeze today to waft them away, but a single ray of sunlight broke through the general overcast to light up every filament like a prism. If you click on this photo, you might see the rainbow of colors among the silk -- a nice finishing touch to a day already filled with glorious color.

Sunday Afternoon on Pyramid Lake

2011-10-10T20:50:00.000-04:00

Most Columbus Day Weekends find me up in Essex County at Pyramid Lake, where I volunteer at a retreat center, helping ready the center for the winter. A perfect gem of a wilderness lake, surrounded by mountains and incomparably beautiful in every season, Pyramid is never lovelier than on a perfect October day, exactly the kind of sun-warmed, blue-sky day we had on Sunday. My chores completed, I was free by late afternoon to slip my canoe into these pristine waters and paddle around the lake. The sun was easing down the western sky, shedding a golden light on the flaming foliage, and an absolute silence settled over the water as the day's brisk breeze died down.

The only sound I could hear was the drip, drip, drip from the ends of my paddle as I moved along close to shore, breathing in the delicious scent of pine-needled forest, feasting my eyes on a sapphire sky and the radiant trees, their gorgeous colors intensified in their rippling reflections.

As I rounded the end of a pine-studded island, I looked back to see the sheer cliffs of Bear Mountain gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

I nudged my canoe into a cedar swamp at the eastern end of the lake, wondering if I would once again find the millions of tiny pale-green jelly-like balls, called Nostoc Balls, that thrive in the shallow waters here. I did not see them at first, for they were not floating near the surface as I remembered them from earlier seasons, but were instead lying very close to the bottom of the autumn-chilled water. I reached down into the water and brought some swirling closer to the surface where I could see them better.

These little balls are composed of colonies of cyanobacteria (also called blue-green algae) encased in a spherical membrane. I have read that they are quite uncommon, so I always feel a bit of excitement whenever I find them here. (To see a photo of how abundant these balls can be in this lake, as well as to find a link to some microscopic views of their structure, click here.)

This tiny white feather (a loon's?) was floating on those same waters. I was struck by how it was beaded with sparkling dewdrops.

I was also struck by the vivid magic-lantern glow of this tiny Red Maple seedling growing on a moss-covered log, lit from behind by a lowering sun that also intensified the green of the moss.

Back on shore, I admired the beautiful fruits of Partridgeberry. Notice the two little "eyes" on each berry, which are the blossom scars. This is the only berry I can think of that requires two flowers to make one fruit.

After beaching my canoe, I walked down a trail that led to a thundering waterfall, its roaring waters amplified by this summer's abundant rainfall. It's really rare to see more than a trickle flowing over these rocks this late in autumn.

It's hard to think of this season as autumn, though, as the summer continues to hold sway over our weather, with temperatures still reaching into the 70s, and even 80s. No killing frosts as yet, even as far north as Pyramid Lake, where a garden planted with Zinnias attracted this lovely yellow sulpher butterfly.

Perfect Day for a Paddle

2011-10-08T22:01:00.000-04:00

Perfect! That's the only way to describe the Hudson River this exquisite morning, when I joined Ed Miller and some of his friends for a leisurely paddle.

We put in at the boat launch below Spier Falls, then crossed the river to glide along under sun-warmed banks. About a mile downstream, we crossed the river again to follow where the waters flowed around rocky promontories and tree-studded islands.

Because of high water levels due to excessive rainfall this summer and fall, we were able to paddle well back into a swamp that was bordered by an abundance of Black Tupelo trees. Unfortunately, most of these trees have had their trunks girdled by gnawing beavers and so are slowly dying, if not already dead. I've often pondered why the beavers left the trees standing, since their usual habit is to topple trees to access the tender bark and twigs at the top. My guess is that the beavers found the tough wood of the tupelos as difficult to penetrate as did early human settlers whose axes would simply bounce off the interwoven and cross-braided fibers of the timber.

Those tupelos added just about the only vivid color to the forest today, what with our autumn foliage so long delayed this year. Thankfully, the Winterberry shrubs are right on schedule with their brilliant berries.

Great Day for a Trail. Or Two!

2011-10-06T23:13:00.001-04:00

What a perfect day to explore a new trail -- clear and cool, a bright sun overhead and crisp autumn leaves underfoot. And what a great bunch of folks to do it with -- a group of friends called The Thursday Naturalists, whose combined knowledge of all things woodsy would fill many libraries, and whose company is just plain fun. I don't hike with them as often as I'd like, since many of their weekly excursions take place rather far from my home, but today their plan was to hike some new trails in nearby Malta, so I jumped at my chance to join them.

We met at a parking area off Hermes Road in what once was a tract of land called the Luther Forest but which now is home to a huge electronics manufacturing plant. Many hundreds of acres of wooded land still surround this complex, and a number of walking trails have been established here. The first part of the trail we chose today was level and paved with stone dust, leading to a spacious gazebo provided with a ramp for wheelchair access.

This particular trail was chosen to better accommodate the needs of one of the group's members, who, well into her 90s, still enjoys a walk in the woods and whose keen interest in things botanical adds much to the outing's enjoyment for everyone.

There were very few flowers along the trail today, but we still found much to delight and intrigue us. Here, Ed uses his magnifier to peer at a tiny insect nestled inside the gills of a Russula mushroom.

We found a nice fat Bear's Head toothed fungus (Hericium coralloides), which would have made a delicious mushroom meal, if those browning tips hadn't indicated that this fungus had grown too old to eat.

Here's another toothed fungus we found, Purple Tooth Polypore (Trichaptum biformis). Some were white, and others, like these, were more tan, but all had a lovely lavender edge. Way too woody to eat, though.

I wish I could have stayed longer with my friends this morning, but I had to get back to my house to meet electricians. When their work was done, the day was still young and still as lovely as ever, so I hurried out to enjoy a brief afternoon's walk at Bog Meadow Nature Trail in Saratoga.

Just a month ago, this boardwalk that crosses a marshy stretch of the trail was alive with the buzzing and flitting and calling of insects and birds. Today, it was eerily silent, except for the faint trilling of tree crickets far off in the distance. It was blissful to sit on a bench here and bask in the fading sun.

Most of the flowers have disappeared by now, even though we have yet to experience a true killing frost. I did find one plant of Swamp Thistle, one of our native thistles, with its fluffy purple flowerheads as vivid as ever. The color is actually more toward the magenta, but this is the color as my camera renders it.

There were still a few straggling blooms of New England Aster around, as well, which must have made this fat bee very happy, as she loads up with pollen before the autumn's cold arrives in earnest.

I had to stop at the supermarket on the way home, and there near the parking lot was a stand of Jerusalem Artichokes, the very last flower of summer. (The Monkshood in my garden still have yet to bloom, but they don't really count as the last flower around here, since they are not native to Saratoga County and I planted them.)

Somebody else was enjoying this lovely warm day and this splendid yellow flower. And I sure enjoyed the sight of this Candy-striped Leafhopper, which has got to be one of the most beautiful insects of all.

Up the Mountain with ECOS Friends

2011-10-05T01:07:00.000-04:00

Yeah, it rained a little. But that didn't deter the friendly bunch of naturalists from the Environmental Clearing House of Schenectady (ECOS) from climbing a mountain today in Moreau Lake State Park. Granted, the climb was not very high, just a few steep spots but mostly a steady up and up to a rocky ledge overlooking the Hudson. And of course, being naturalists, our pace was as slow as our interest in trailside finds was great. In short, we took our sweet time.

And we took a few detours. When we reached a place where powerlines cross the trail, my friend Sue and I led our group on a little sidetrip to visit a patch of Pink Earth Lichens that we knew could be found in that area. That's a wonderful thing about lichens: they look about the same in every season and you usually can find them again where you saw them last. And I think Pink Earth Lichens are definitely worth a revisit. Just remember, if you go looking for them, that their chubby little pink fruiting bodies are only about the size of a head of a pin. This photo shows them much larger.

We found so many fascinating and beautiful lichens up there, we probably could have stayed right along the powerline and called it a day. We were all delighted by this lichen, a Cladonia, no doubt, but one that combines the characteristics of British Soldiers and Pixie Cups but was something else entirely. Ooh, and look at those tiny red wands sticking up from the Haircap Moss! I hadn't noticed them until just now as I posted this photo. I see the familiar moss spore stalks nearby, but what could those red wands be? Part of the moss, or from some other organism altogether?

Growing in the same patch was another species of Cladonia lichen, this one topped with rosy pink fruiting bodies.

Someone in our group did know the name of this little lichen that grows in stacked tiers. This is called Pagoda, a good descriptive name for this fruticose lichen.

Eventually, we resumed our climb, stopping at nearly every turn to admire the marvelous variety of fungi growing everywhere. This delicate ivory stemless cluster reminded me of Oyster Mushrooms, but I couldn't be sure.

This toothed shelf fungus looked, at first glance, like Bear's Head, but a second look told me no, wrong shape, especially after we found a genuine Bear's Head growing nearby. I'm not sure what this is. It was tougher and more rubbery than the tender-textured Bear's Head.

Aw, aren't they sweet? Two little Red Efts snuggle up on this chilly morning. We also found a Red-backed Salamander under an overturned rock, but it wriggled away too quickly for a photograph.

Yes!!! We made it to the overlook! What a glorious view of the Hudson River, mirror-still today, with sunlit mountains standing out against the far horizon. Tiny blue fuzzy flies, the winged form of Wooly Alder Aphids, were flitting about, and Sue (blue tee) captured one in her hand to show to us up close.

That aphid flew away before I could take its picture, but I found a photo of one in my files, taken two years ago. These aphids usually are wingless and cluster in colonies on alders, exuding "fur" of white waxy material that makes them look like tufts of cotton along the twigs. When they've depleted their food source in one location, they sprout wings to move to another shrub, as this little critter has done.

The view from our perch on this rocky ledge was so lovely we didn't want to leave.

Win (blue coat, grey cap) has spotted what he thinks might be an unusual Yellow Oak down there in all that mass of green. And by Yellow Oak, I mean the tree species, not one that has turned yellow. Just look at all those green trees, and here it is, October! Where's our fall foliage color?

One of the joys of walking with fellow naturalists is that there's always somebody in the group who knows something the others don't. Or spots really good stuff that the rest of us might have missed. I sure had a wonderful time with this group today and was proud to show off a part of this beautiful park that many had never seen. Now I look forward to further adventures together.

Westchester Woodswalks

2011-10-04T23:02:00.000-04:00

I'm just back from a few days downstate in Westchester County, where I tried to interest my grandkids in coming out to the woods with me. No deal, Grandma. We've got other plans. OK, so while the girls were off with their friends and I was relieved of babysitting duties, I found my way to some lovely local nature preserves. Marsh Sanctuary, just outside of the town of Mt. Kisco, offers trails that run through a variety of terrains, including the quiet pond pictured above, and the shaded rocky woodland pictured below.

Another trail led up a steep hill through a grassy meadow to a woods of oak and hickory and beech. On either side of this trail, the breeze moved in waves through acres of Little Bluestem Grass, fully in flower now, the filaments of its fluffy tufts shining in the sun.

There was goldenrod, too, hidden among the waves of grass, and these were just about the only native plants I could find in the whole preserve, not counting the trees and some native dogwood shrubs. That doesn't mean the vegetation wasn't beautiful, because it certainly was, despite being almost exclusively alien invasives, such as this Japanese Knotweed covering an old stone wall. I don't believe I have ever seen Japanese Knotweed with such vivid pink seed receptacles any other place but this.

Competing with the Japanese Knotweed and Multiflora Rose and Wineberry and Japanese Barberry to cover every available space was this prolific vine with berries in shades of the most remarkable turquoise blue and purple. This was a new plant for me, and although I couldn't help admiring its genuine beauty, I was dismayed to discover, when I learned its name, that this vine, Porcelainberry, is considered one of the most invasive plants around.

I did notice some recently planted native shrubs -- Winterberry and several species of Viburnum -- growing around the pond, but they looked pretty spindly, struggling to survive against all the vigorous competition. Then I came upon this healthy looking shrub. It looked a bit familiar to me, but it took me a while to remember its name, since this woodsy Westchester habitat seemed hardly the place where Groundsel Tree (Baccharis halimifolia) would be found. The last place I found it was among the coastal sand dunes of Fire Island, its typical habitat. I found just this one specimen at Marsh Sanctuary. I wonder how it got here?

More Moreau Mushrooms

2011-09-28T22:23:00.000-04:00

The rain that started last night kept going this morning, but not hard enough to spoil plans for a walk around Moreau Lake with Sue today. I'll be off to Mt. Kisco tomorrow to babysit grandkids until early next week, and I knew I had to have a good dose of Saratoga County nature to carry me through. Moreau Lake lay still and lovely under a soft gray sky, the misty light only emphasizing the radiant colors of the trees along the far shore. Every year, I notice that ruby-red tree, and every year, I neglect to find out what kind of tree has leaves that turn such a striking color. And I didn't find out today, either, since Sue and I stayed on the opposite side of the lake the entire morning.

My original plan was to walk all around the lake, work up some speed, get a little aerobic exercise and all, but of course we hadn't gone 20 yards from the parking lot before we screeched to a halt to examine these mushrooms. Such a lovely celadon green, tipped with yellow, and underneath, its gills were brownish gray. But I can't find any mushrooms this color in any of my books. So I don't know its name, alas.

Update: Thanks go to mycologist Sue Van Hook, who has identified this mushroom as Bulbitius vitellinus. This mushroom is all yellow when young, but turns pale and sometimes greenish as it ages, while keeping its yellow center.

While kneeling down to photograph the mushrooms above, we noticed these itsy-bitsy stripey brown cups covering much of the nearby bank. A closer look revealed that each cup had tiny greenish-gray "eggs" inside (as well as holding water from the rain). I wish my photo was better focused to better show those "eggs," but at least the image was clear enough that I could locate their look-alikes in my mushroom guides. This is called Striate Bird's Nest (Cyanthus striatus).

A quick look around revealed another species of bird's nest fungus, White Bird's Nest (Crucibulum laeve), with tiny whitish "eggs." Those eggs are actually spore capsules, called peridioles, which are released when rain or drip water splashes them out of their cups. These cups were very small, as my fingernail demonstrates. I wonder if those really tiny orange balls nearby will grow up to be splash cups. We found some cups that had single orange balls inside, instead of whitish eggs.

More itsy-bitsies . I'm pretty sure these are Marasmius, possibly M. capillaris. These tiny fungi on wiry stems will disappear in dry weather and reappear overnight when we have a good rain. They were everywhere in the woods today. Sue Van Hook suggests that these are M. rotula instead of M. capillaris.

Another fungus just everywhere in the woods was this hair-fine cream-colored stuff, which I never would have seen without Sue's eagle eyes to point it out to me. With my bad eyes, they just blended in with the pine needles at my feet. My camera could see them better than I could, although not perfectly. But well-enough to allow me to find their match in my guides. These have the wonderfully apt name of Fairy Thread (Macrotyphula juncea).

From tiny fungi to one of the whopping biggest: this is Hen of the Woods, which can grow to bushel-basket size and many pounds. This particular clump was much more diminutive than that, not much more than a handful. There were bigger clumps around, though, enough for me to make a delicious mushroom soup, redolent of the fragrance of the forest.

A few of the fungi had knock-your-eye-out colors, including this brilliant yellow clump. It's possible these are Yellow Wax Caps, but I don't know for sure. There are several species of bright yellow mushrooms that grow around here, and I haven't figured out how to tell them apart.

I don't know what this one is, either. Its top is flaming orange, but its true beauty lies in the marvelous ruffled gills of its underside. I wonder if this could be a Chanterelle, perhaps Cantharellus cinnabarinus?

Another ruffly 'shroom that resembles a Chanterelle, but I couldn't say for sure. Sue Van Hook thinks this is Clitopitus prunulus.

I am pretty sure, though, that this one is Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor), a particularly striking one with beautiful contrast between its rich brown stripes and creamy-white ruffled edges.

Fungi sure can take all kinds of different forms. Did this white mold spread from the tree to the ground, or the other way around?

Here was another puzzle. How could this leaf just hang in mid-air, turning around in the breeze? It didn't take long to discover the spider silk from which it dangled, but it sure caught our attention at first sight.

As did so many other fascinating things in the woods and along the shore. No wonder we didn't make it all the way around the lake. Ah well, another day. . . .

A Summery Day, Early Autumn

2011-09-27T21:15:00.001-04:00

Summer came back for a few balmy days. We reopened the windows, unpacked the shorts and tees, and I took my canoe to the Hudson for the first time in many weeks. With, first, the spring floods and then, the summer hurricanes filling the river with roiling mud and rampaging flotsam this year, I think I got out on the river fewer than a dozen times this summer. But as these calm-water photos show, it was safe to go back on the water today, and I jumped at the chance. What bliss it was, to glide across these glassy waters, the sun warm on my back, the water sweet and cool to my trailing fingers.

The autumn foliage color is quite late this year, with just a tinge in some of the beeches and maples. But Black Tupelos always put on a brilliant show, starting as early as August. By now, their lipstick-red and emerald-green glossy leaves are joined by blue-black berries on hot-pink stems.

Winterberry is also in full display now, with fat red berries that will cling to the branches long after the leaves have withered and dropped and the berries are capped with snow.

I was afraid that I'd missed the Closed Gentians. Because they grow so low on the banks, just inches above the water, I thought they might have been swept away by the late-summer floods. But there they were, right where I've found them for years, some of the flowers a little bruised, but as radiantly blue as ever.

How amazing to still find Cardinal Flower blazing away on the banks!

In the woods where I walked to get down to the river, mushrooms were still as abundant as the mosquitoes. Some were so beautiful, I just had to stop to enjoy their colors and shapes.

This charming little clump of mosses, lichen, and polypody also caught my eye and caused me to linger long enough to take a photo. How I love these miniature gardens!

Heading home, I pulled over to the side of the road to gaze at this majestic thunderhead. A burgeoning mass of snowy white against that blue sky, it looked, at first, like a huge cauliflower until its upper reaches began to spread out to make the anvil shape so typical of this kind of cloud.

As I sit to post this blog about 9pm, the thunder is rumbling outside and rain has begun. I'm glad I took the opportunity to enjoy this sunny, summery day in my little canoe. It may be a while before I can do it again.