It would be hard to imagine a finer paddling experience than I had last Friday: a bright sun smiling gently on us out of a clear blue sky, quiet water shimmering among forested boulders in secluded coves, colorful flowers at the peak of their high-summer beauty, and the best of friends -- Sue Pierce and Ruth Brooks -- to enjoy every minute we had together, doing what we love to do best: exploring what marvels Mother Nature had in store for us on this perfect day.
Sue and Ruth and I met to paddle the Hudson River at Moreau. Here's where we put our lightweight canoes in the boulder-shored river, where the forest glowed green and gold in the morning sun, and the quiet water echoed all that surrounding beauty in shimmering reflections.
After days of rain, the river was high enough to allow our little boats to move easily among the shaded, moss-covered boulders.
It was only a matter of minutes before we spied our first of many Cardinal Flowers (Lobelia cardinalis), glowing like a beacon from out of the shady banks.
Again and again, as we slowly paddled close to the shore, the Cardinal Flowers announced their presence with flaming color.
The vividly blue Monkey Flowers (Mimulus ringens) also caught our attention with their quieter beauty.
It was hard to miss this group of Spotted Joe-Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum) towering above all other riverside vegetation, the morning sun spot-lighting their dusty-rose flower heads.
The snowy-white spiky flowers of Tall Meadow Rue (Thalictrum pubescens) were impossible to overlook, even when hiding among the shade of taller riverside plants.
Patches of Pipewort (Eriocaulon aquaticum) decorated the shallows with their tiny white button-shaped blooms atop slender leafless stems.
Stands of Soft-stemmed Rush (Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani) waved their arching stems in the breeze, which also rippled the water and turned the stems' reflections into crinkled threads of gold and green.
Many waterside boulders were covered with a fascinating variety of mosses, lichens, and liverworts. I recognized this fluffy green mound of moss as Common Apple Moss (Bartramia pomiformis), thanks to the tiny brown perfectly round spore capsules (remnants of last year's growth) almost hidden among the starry-shaped leaves. A small patch of what looked to be a leafy liverwort (Plagiochila asplenoides?) can be seen in the upper left corner of this photo.
A large section of smooth rocky bank was carpeted with a plush growth of Big Red-stemmed Moss (Pleurozium schreberi), punctuated by a single specimen of Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) bearing a cluster of bright-red berries.
Another rocky bank held this interesting mix of various dark- and light-green mosses, a single golden mushroom, a small cluster of Partridgeberry leaves, and a large silvery-gray patch of a ruffly Peltigera lichen.
A single, startling-white mushroom (an Amanita species, told by its basal cup and the veil remnants on stem and cap) had found a niche among protective boulders on a steep bank of the river.
Our destination today was this quiet cove, where several years ago I had found a single specimen of a Smaller Purple-fringed Orchid (Platanthera psycodes). I hadn't seen it again at this site for all the years since then. Might it be possible to find it here once again today? Sometimes orchids take years between blooming times.
We didn't really hold much hope about finding the orchids, but the cove invited us in by its serene beauty, nevertheless.
And look what we found! TWO Smaller Purple-fringed Orchids, not just the single one I had found in this very same spot all those years ago!
And the orchids were right where I'd found that single specimen years before, almost hidden beneath the fronds of a Royal Fern.
It was hard to stop taking pictures of these beautiful orchids. I might never see them again at this site in my lifetime, after all. And they were in perfect bloom.
With afternoon rains predicted and our sought-after treasure found, we soon decided we'd best continue our explorations of the river another day. As we entered the cove where we'd launched our canoes, another surprise awaited us. Hordes of tiny creatures were massing in clusters on the water's surface, while others skittered across the water, then gathered again in floating islands of spiky-legged insects that dispersed in a flash as our boats approached. None of us had ever seen such insect activity. But we could guess, by the way they skated at astounding speed across the water, that these creatures had to be Water Strider nymphs.
And here, atop this floating Watershield leaf, we found confirmation of our guess. I don't know what species those tiny flies are that are also sharing this leaf, but the long-legged spiky-looking things are the cast-off skins of molting Water Strider nymphs (I once had a similar find confirmed as such by an entomologist). But even though I had seen these shed skins stuck on Watershield pads before, I had never before seen such massive congregations of the nymphs on the water, and neither had Sue or Ruth. We just never know what amazing sights might await us here on this river!
(Now I need to find out the story behind these tiny flies. Hello, BugGuide.net, it's me again!)
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