Late Summer, Lovely River

How many more of these perfect paddling days remain in this summer?  Family gatherings and weekends away have kept me off the Hudson most of this August, but today was a wonderful blue-sky day for remedying that lack.  And best of all, when I put my canoe in the river above the Sherman Island Dam, there wasn't another soul around to ripple that serene surface.

Except for this little group of Mallard hens paddling quietly amid the shimmering reflections.

The riverbanks were adorned with stunning juxtapositions of Cardinal Flower and Helenium.

Even underwater, the plants put on a beautiful display.

The angle of the sun was just right to set this patch of Cardinal Flower ablaze.

Against the dark shadows of the deep woods, these sprays of Goldenrod exploded like fireworks.

Tall Coneflower lifted its bright-yellow blossoms high above the other riverbank plants.

 

Is there really any time of year when Buttonbush is not arresting?  Although its tiny white trumpet-shaped flowers have long-ago dropped to the ground, the developing seed-heads now assume their own version of beautiful.  And those wonderfully symmetrical pods will remain on the bush well into the winter.

I was surprised to find these Elderberries still hanging in heavy clusters from their shrubs, uneaten as yet by the birds.  Perhaps they need a frost to temper their bitterness and make them more palatable -- athough I think they will fall off long before frost, since a shower of berries fell into my boat as I paddled beneath the boughs.

I was happy to find these snow-white berries, too, still clinging to their hot-pink pedicels.  I doubt they will stay there long, since Panicled Dogwood berries are an important food source for birds.

Ah, here they are, the flowers I was hoping to find!  Is there any blue more lovely than that of the Closed Gentian?  Especially when set off by a flower of complementary color, such as Helenium?

I found several clusters of gentians growing on the banks of a little island in the middle of the river.

This little clam shell seemed to glow in the dark waters next to the riverbank.

Somebody once told me that the fruits of Purple-flowering Raspberry were seedy and sour.  I think that person wanted to hoard them all to herself, because they really are tender and tasty, sweet and soft if you let them get perfectly ripe, which these were today.  I was grateful for their little gift of deliciousness.

Ah yes, the fall will soon be upon us, with September only a week and a day away.  But Black Tupelo doesn't wait until autumn to put on its dazzling display of ruby leaves.   Also, the trees that I passed by today always turn exceptionally early, since their trunks have all been girdled by beavers.  It amazes me that these trees still stand, still leaf out each summer, and even bear fruit.

Meadow Walk

Joe-Pye was as high as an elephant's eye . . .

. . . and Goldenrod glowed against the blue sky.

What an amazingly beautiful day to be wandering a late-summer meadow, aflutter with butterflies and resounding with trilling crickets.  My friend Sue brought me out to this meadow preserve that lies very near her Queensbury home, and the morning was fresh and cool enough that we welcomed the bright sun shining out of that cobalt-blue sky.  Here, Sue is peering among the foliage, hoping to find the source of a cricket's trill.

And here it was!  Not the typical shiny-black cricket we usually see, but a lacy green Tree Cricket.

Climbing the stalks of the tall Joe-Pye Weed were these fat pink pods of Hedge Bindweed gone to seed.

These fragrant clusters of Groundnut flowers were climbing on stalks along the nearby Warren County Bikeway.

The wildflowers along the bikeway form a beautiful butterfly garden, and today these flowers were alive with dozens of Painted Ladies.

Clusters of translucent Bittersweet Nightshade Berries glowed like ruby lamps in the morning sun.

Sue Gets A Hornbeck!

NOW we can really go places!  My dear friend and nature companion Sue has finally taken the plunge and purchased a Hornbeck Blackjack canoe.  Because this boat weighs a mere 12 pounds, Sue can hoist it up on one shoulder and hike for long distances to hidden ponds that no car could have access to.  I've got a list of places I can't wait to take her to.  But first she wanted to baptize her Blackjack in the dear familiar waters of Moreau Lake, the lake that's our true home base and the place that we first came to know one another.  I joined her there on Wednesday morning.  I am, after all, a kind of godmother to Sue's new baby.

Here Sue sets out to test her new boat's performance and to get a feel for how far she can tip it before swamping.  After several maneuvers that involved her getting thoroughly soaked (on purpose!), she dumped the water out of her boat, dried off a bit, and set out to explore the shore of the lake.  That's my own Hornbeck Blackjack on the shore, and I quickly got in and followed her.

When we entered the first bay of the lake, I noticed quite a commotion in a tall Sassafras tree and saw flashes of red and black as this Pileated Woodpecker (Sue thought it was a juvenile) tugged at the ripening fruit.

Well, it's always exciting to see a Pileated Woodpecker, they're such flashily impressive birds, but I was even more excited to see so many fruits on this Sassafras.  Every year I hunt and hunt for them and only rarely find them, even on trees that I know had female flowers in the spring.  This has got to be one of the prettiest tree fruits, with blue-black berries resting on scarlet pedicels that hold the fruit erect like tiny goblets.  Obviously, woodpeckers love to eat them, but they're not considered to be edible for humans.

The shoreline of the lake is beginning to take on late-summer colors, with this beautiful little golden sedge (?)  growing copiously in the sand at the water's edge.   I love the pretty herringbone pattern of its flower heads.

While peering closely to admire that sedge, Sue discovered this moribund Katydid, an insect we rarely get to lay eyes on, since it normally occupies the treetops.  Such a lovely color, like the finest jade, and what delicacy of the wings! We guessed that this was a female, with that ovipositor protruding from her abdomen.  Does a Katydid expire after laying her eggs?  We felt a tender sadness toward her, and Sue laid her gently on the sand beneath the pretty sedge.

I was surprised to find Small-flowered Gerardia already in bloom, since this is a flower I normally don't start to look for along Moreau's shores until September.   The plants were not only blooming early, they also seemed to be extraordinarily large.   Is it possible another species of Gerardia has moved in on the territory?

This was quite an extraordinary clump of Nodding Smartweed.  I usually find just a few scraggly stems here and there, but here was a magnificent cluster of them all handsomely massed together in a most un-weedlike manner.

Good For What Ailed Me

I did not feel at all well today, still fighting an illness that started last week.  It was time to seek medical help.  My doctor would see me, but not until late afternoon, so maybe I should have gone back to bed and stayed there most of the day.  But oh, it was such a lovely summer day and I heard the river calling my name.  After all, what could be more healing than resting back in my little canoe, drifting along on silky-smooth water, a light breeze lifting my hair and cooling my brow?

 I do love the river on Mondays, when I have its expanse for the most part to myself, the weekend motor-boat traffic now gone away, and only a few other paddlers quietly making their way up and down the stream.  Today, the river felt like those "restful waters" the psalmist sings about.


All my late-summer flower friends were there to greet me as I slipped along close to the banks.  These gorgeous Helen's Flowers (also called Sneezeweed) were leaning out over the water, so I didn't even need to get out of my boat to take their photo.

This Turtlehead had reached its point of perfection, before its first-opened flowers began to turn brown as its newly opened buds ascended the stalk.  I love how the blossoms were touched with pink.

The first Narrow-leaved Gentians I came across were withered and brown and I felt kind of sad to have missed the blooming time of this exquisite flower.  But then I rounded a curve in the bank and saw before me this cluster of radiant blue.

More radiant blue awaited as I passed under an overhanging shrub of Silky Dogwood.

Such a lovely ruddy-brown dragonfly with bright-green cheeks and a yellow breast, I sure wish I knew its name.   But knowing its name would not really make it any more beautiful, with those iridescent wings that echo the colors of the leaf it was resting on.

I have read that indulging in things that give joy -- laughter, singing, dancing, and love, for example --  is a way to boost one's immune system, effecting a measurable increase in the number of T-cells carried by the blood and thus promoting health.  So this hour or so on my beautiful river has got to have done me much good.  Especially now that I can supplement its effect with medication.  And a good night's sleep.  Sweet dreams!

Catching Up

Time to catch up on the past week's outings.  I did get out several times, but what with houseguests and feeling ill part of the week, I sure didn't feel like sitting up late to write my blog.  But I hate to let a whole week go by without recording something about what's happening in the natural world around me, so here's a brief recap.

Thursday, August 9:  Mud Pond walk with the Thursday Naturalists

What a great gang to go for a walk with!  And it's not just that everyone in the Thursday Naturalists is an expert in some aspect of nature -- although that, of course, is a big plus.  But they're also just wonderful fun to be with, alert to the wonders around us, eager to learn, and just as eager to share what they know with each other.   I felt tremendously pleased when they asked me to lead the group on a walk around Mud Pond in Moreau Lake State Park, primarily to explore the mud flats along one shore, where a marvelous variety of plants uniquely suited to this habitat can be found.  (We were also treated to a Bald Eagle soaring over the pond and landing several times in spots where we could all get a clear view.)

Of course, it took us a while to get there, moving as we did at a botanical pace, which means lots of stopping to examine all kinds of plants along the way.   We started our walk in a dry sandy part of the trail, where Blue Curls were in their glory, demanding that we all bend down to peer more closely at their tiny exquisite blooms with the curving stamens.

Nearby, at the edge of the pond, we found lots of Humped Bladderworts, little bright-yellow flowers standing straight up on thin naked stalks, the inflatable bladders with which they capture tiny organisms for food splayed beneath them in the wet mud.

When we finally reached our destination mud flats, we found more tiny yellow flowers growing out of damp ground, the sweet little Dwarf St. Johnsworts.

Another shoreline denizen is Wild Mint, strongly scented and adorned with puffs of tiny lavender flowers.

The green carpet visible in the photo above is made up almost exclusively of masses of Water Purslane, which bears tiny 4-parted flowers in its leaf axils.  One of our group, Ruth Schottman, noted how the box-like structure of the flower resembled that of Seedbox, which is not surprising, since both plants are members of the Evening Primrose Family.

Common Smartweed is rather a scrawny,  homely flower by itself, but masses of it heaped on a hummock and punctuated by the vivid blue sprays of Blue Vervain made quite a lovely sight.

The chubby little blooms of Ditch Stonecrop looked quite striking, set among leaves with dark-red stems.

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Saturday, August 11:  Exploring the Ice Meadows with two new friends

The world of internet connections is amazing indeed.  Because I am Facebook friends with one botanist from Ohio, I also became a Facebook friend of John Manion, a botanist from Alabama.  It also happens that John studied at SUNY Cobleskill where Anne Donnelly (no relation) is a professor, and they became friends there.  Anne  is also on the board at Landis Arboretum where Ed Miller is curator of native woody plants.  So Anne is also a friend of Ed, who is also a friend of mine.  Small world!  And all of us got together this week because John is visiting here in New York and wanted to explore the Ice Meadows north of Warrensburg, and he wanted his friend Anne to join us, and both of them wanted Ed and me to be their guides.  And it was wonderful fun!

This particular stretch of Hudson River bank has a distinctive habitat influenced by masses of ice that pile up on the shores each winter,  creating what is one of the richest botanical sites in the state.  Although the full flush of summer flowers has mostly gone by, we were treated to many just-opening spikes of the lovely little native orchid, Nodding Ladies' Tresses.

In other summers, we would not expect to see this species of Ladies' Tresses until several weeks later than this.  But almost all of our native wildflowers have bloomed about two weeks early this year.   It is difficult to distinguish the Nodding Ladies' Tresses from the very similar Hooded Ladies' Tresses, and one of the ways we tell them apart is by bloom time, with the Hooded species blooming earlier in the summer.  But this year their bloom time is almost overlapping, since it was only last week that I went up to Thirteenth Lake to see the Hooded ones, which were just starting to fade.

Another way to distinguish this Nodding species is by the shape of the lower petal, which does NOT narrow into a fiddle shape as does that of the Hooded.  But these distinctions are often difficult to discern.

We were presented with another puzzle when we found these bladderworts blooming in the little pools that lie among the rocks.   We could plainly see the bottle-brush leaves of the species called Flat-leaved Bladderwort, and since the little yellow flowers were protruding from these leaves,  we would ordinarily assume that these were the flowers of those leaves.  Problem is, Flat-leaved Bladderworts bloom early in the summer and have larger flowers than these.  The species of bladderwort we would expect to find this late in the summer is the Humped Bladderwort, which has a flower that is very small.  Like these.

I was able to extract one plant carefully from the mass of Flat-leaved Bladderwort leaves, and it appeared to have no leaves at all.  I suppose they could have broken off, but I'm going to surmise that this is actually a Humped Bladderwort that just happened to share the same little puddle as the Flat-leaved kind.   I would, however, be happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.

At least I had no doubt at all that these were Pipeworts protruding from the foamy water at the river's edge.

This stand of Canadian Burnet made a good hiding spot for this similarly colored moth.

The vividly colored Monarch Butterfly doesn't need to hide, since its orange color is a warning sign to predators that it is poisonous to eat.   Happily, the butterfly did not find ME poisonous to eat, and it sat on my hand for quite a while, apparently licking the salt from my skin with its long thin proboscis.

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Sunday, August 12: Surprising finds at Wilton Wildlife Preserve

There's an oak/pine savanna restoration site at Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, where the Nature Conservancy is working with New York's DEC and folks from WWPP to create and maintain an open grasslands habitat.  That's where I went today.

One of my goals for visiting this site, called the Old Gick Farm parcel, was to see if a particular aster was blooming again this year.  This is the Late Purple Aster (Symphyotrichum patens), a species that is considered far out of its range in Saratoga County.  I found one plant blooming last August, and this year I discovered there were two, so it not only survived, but it also appears to be spreading.  This photo is of a single stem with two flowers in bloom.  This aster has a very stiff wiry dark stem with leaves that completely clasp the stem.  Nobody knows how it got here, but it will be interesting to see if it continues to survive and establish a population.

I suppose it's possible the aster's seed arrived with grass seed that's being used to restore native grasses to the Wilton site.  This is a wonderful time to visit this preserve and see the various grasses in flower and in seed.  Some of them are quite lovely, like this fluffy bunch.

 

Or this tall stately cluster.

The goldenrods are coming into their glory, too.

I wonder if this grasshopper was the victim of a Jagged Ambush Bug, a predatory insect that likes to lurk in flowers.  This is the deadest-looking grasshopper I could imagine.  I don't think the yellow striped beetle had anything to do with the 'hopper's demise, since this is a Locust Borer Beetle that eats only pollen.

Here's that same kind of beetle feeding on Boneset.   This spectacular creature with the glossy red legs is a native beetle that is considered a pest of Black Locust trees because its larvae bore into the tree's wood.   Looking at this photo now, I'm noticing that the antennae appear to be coming right out of the insect's eyes.  Yikes!

Here's another pollen eater, a Feather-legged Fly, quite an interesting-looking critter with that orange-and-black abdomen, giant-sized eyes, and feathery hind legs.  I love that ombre edge to its wings, as well.

On my way home I noticed a large patch of tall sunflower-like plants in a ditch by the side of the road.  They didn't look exactly like any flowers I recognized, so I promptly pulled over and went to take a closer look. Wow, these are really odd, I thought, with their flopped-back petals and distinctively winged stems.  Sort of like Sneezeweed on steroids.

It took me just a minute to key them out, using the system in Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (it really works!).  Turns out that this is the rare Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia), a plant has never been mapped as existng in Saratoga County and which is also listed as Threatened in New York State.  Adding this plant to that Late Purple Aster (and also the Tall Ironweed that grows near that aster),  this stretch of Wilton highway is turning out to be quite a hotbed of plants that are not supposed to be here.