A Lazy Afternoon and a Big Surprise

It's a lazy afternoon,

and the beetle bugs are zoomin'

and the tulip trees are bloomin'

and there's not another human in view. . . .

That old song from the 1950s kept going around in my head today as I drifted along the Hudson banks, enjoying this beautiful summer day with a leisurely paddle on a river I had all to myself.

Puffy white clouds drifted across a radiant blue sky, while sunshine lit up the vivid Cardinal

Flowers and Golden Pert that sprouted from every crevice in the rocks and lined the shore.

With my little lightweight canoe I could ease right into the shallows close to shore, where the woodsy fragrance of the shady forest tumbled over the banks, and green carpets of Golden Pert flourished just under the surface of the water.

Dragonflies of many kinds were zooming over the water, but only this Slatey Blue landed long enough for me to get a photo.

This Live Forever, a kind of wild sedum, was just coming into flower. Although most of its buds were still tightly closed, they were colored a vivid velvety magenta.

There's no denying this Purple Loosestrife looks gorgeous, set off by the sunny yellow Helenium. Too bad I had to pull it out. For at least ten years, I've been destroying this aggressive alien interloper wherever I find it along these shores, and now I find just a few each summer.

One plant that seems to be really thriving this summer is Wild Celery, a native water plant that's a favorite food of ducks and other water fowl. I don't recall ever seeing such masses of it growing in every bay, its little white female flowers held just at the surface by shiny curlicue stems. A year ago, this bay was choked with Eurasion Milfoil, but this year I could find only a few of the milfoil's feathery stems. (You can see one of those pinky-green milfoil stems in the center foreground of this photo.) Could it be that the Wild Celery has supplanted this nasty invasive?

Here's a close-up view of a Wild Celery female flower.

The male flowers, which grow underwater at the base of separate plants, are much, much smaller. When ripe, they rise to the surface and tumble into the little dimples the female flowers produce in the surface tension of the water. Once the flowers are fertilized, the curlicue stems tightly recoil and deposit the flowers down into the mud at the bottom of the river, where they will produce new plants.

I found a number of drifting masses of bladderwort, identified as such by all those little sacs on the thready stems. I'm not sure what species this is, perhaps the Humped Bladderwort I found a week or so ago, although I have yet to see any bladderworts of any kind blooming along these shores.

After paddling for several hours, I began to regret that I'd failed to bring anything to drink. So I was delighted to find a bunch of Purple-flowered Raspberries, laden with fruit. Somebody once told me this fruit was not fit to eat, but that person must have wanted to save it all for himself. The berries are actually quite delicious, both tangy and sweet with a velvety soft texture, and no seeds to stick in your teeth. They're also quite large, so it didn't take long to pick a nice handful. Yum!

Heading for home, I was climbing a hill in the woods when Whoa! There was this INDIAN, all dressed in loincloth and feathers and moccasins, his face done up with warpaint, carrying a long gun. Did I feel afraid? No, not even for a moment, since I also saw this white bearded guy with a camera, and he was yelling "Action!"

Turns out, I'd stumbled upon a Dutch film crew making a historical documentary about the Dutch in the Hudson River Valley. Among other places. The name of their project is "Amsterdam Stories USA: A road movie through 16 amsterdams," and you can read all about it at their website by clicking here. They'll be visiting 16 different cities or towns called Amsterdam across the United States, including what was once called New Amsterdam, that is, New York. I didn't quite get what the Indian guy had to do with the story, but it turns out he really is an Indian named Richard Salazar, and he's not Dutch but lives right here in Moreau and is known for his presentations regarding Native American culture. And yes, he sure looked the part.

Bog Hopping with Evelyn the Intrepid

Monday was a real scorcher, a sweltering day when most folks would head to the lake or the air-conditioned mall or at least a backyard hammock in the shade. So what was I doing slogging through this hummocky bog, teetering from tussock to tussock, plunging up to my knees in muck, swatting at deerflies, bleeding from scratches that Black Spruce branches had clawed in my skin, mopping the sweat that stung my eyes and ran down the back of my neck? Well, I was following Evelyn Greene, that's what. A legendary bog hopper and intrepid botanizer, Evelyn is never daunted by such conditions when she's on the hunt, and despite my discomfort I felt mighty pleased to tag along. A friend had told her we might find a rare clubmoss out here, so that's what we were after.

And did we find it? No, but believe it or not, we still had a good time. For one thing, we found some more of that tiny Yellow Bartonia I'd found in a nearby bog last week, a plant that Evelyn thinks is quite uncommon.

Evelyn spotted this tiny purple mushroom growing among the sphagnum, and I tried to take a picture of it, despite the poor light conditions. So, yes, the photo is blurry, but the lovely color comes through.

We'd come prepared, with gloves and long shirts, to push our way through stands of Poison Sumac, but we never saw any. I did find a sumac, however, and one I had never recorded in my journal before. This was a Smooth Sumac, with beautiful pinky-purple smooth stems (unlike the Staghorn Sumac's, which are covered with velvety hairs) and clusters of garnet-red fruits.

And that's about it, for botanical finds yesterday. But that wasn't the sum of the pleasures. I feel really grateful to have come to know such fascinating folks as Evelyn Greene, who knows so much and is so much fun to suffer through bogs with -- even bogs as miserable to walk through as this one was. At one point we both grew so hot and weary we settled down among the cottongrasses and cranberries, our feet and our fannies soaking up the cold water oozing up through the sphagnum mat. We talked and laughed, sharing stories about our families and of other adventures, just like any other old ladies enjoying an afternoon out. Not sitting around a tea table, though, but hunkering down in a bog. What fun!

The Ospreys Take Wing

Well, I guess I could have been disappointed that no one showed up for my nature walk at Ballston Creek on Saturday. No one, that is, but my loyal friend Sue, plus Scott Miller, who was there representing Saratoga P.L.A.N., the land conservation group that scheduled the event. But in some ways, this was a lucky break. If we'd had a big group, we probably wouldn't have been able to spend over an hour observing the most remarkable Osprey behavior I've ever seen.

The trail at the Ballston Creek Preserve leads to an open marsh with an active heronry, and one of those heron nests has been appropriated by a pair of Ospreys, who reared a pair of young there this summer. A week before, I had seen two young ones perched on the edge of the nest, but on Saturday it appeared to be completely empty. My dismay at finding the nest abandoned was short-lived, however, as the loud cries of an adult Osprey drew our attention to where it was circling, fish clutched in its talons, apparently trying to coax a second Osprey -- we guessed it was one of the fledglings -- off its perch in a distant tree.

Now, I'm no Osprey behavior expert, so I can't be sure that that's what the parent bird was doing, but that's sure what it looked like. Round and round that parent bird flew, dangling that tantalizing fish before the perching bird's eyes, as if to say, "Hey, come on! Spread those wings! You gotta go get your own dinner now, 'cause Mom and I are done doing the fishing for you."

The fledgling continued to cling to its perch, quite a distance from its nest. Perhaps the flight from nest to perch was the first time the young bird had spread its wings, and it sure seemed reluctant to take to the terrifying air again.

Observing all these goings-on was a trio of juvenile Great Blue Herons, who kept shifting restlessly in their nearby nest, occasionally standing to stretch their impossibly long stilt-like legs.

I imagine that nest is getting pretty crowded by now, as the juvenile herons achieve adult size but not yet adult skills. They won't be there long, I'm guessing, since all the other nests we could see were now empty of young, where a week ago each nest had been occupied.

I've read that Ospreys will use the same nest year after year, expanding it with each new brood. So now that we know where the nest is, we can plan to come back next year to watch the drama unfold anew. Ten years ago, sighting any Osprey was quite a rare event. What a privilege, then, to not only have Osprey populations expanding, but also to have such a wonderful vantage point from which to watch them rear their young.

Soft Light, Serene Water

A warm quiet morning, low clouds, no wind. My friend Sue and I had a brief morning paddle on the Hudson, enjoying the silence and solitude and the beautiful reflections of mountains and rocks. After an hour or so, it started to pour, so we tucked our cameras under waterproof wraps and cut our adventures short. Luckily, I managed to get a few photos before the sky opened up.

Here's Sue approaching the rocky promontory we call Rippled Rocks Point.

And here are the rippled rocks.

The rocks are home to huge fishing spiders, some as big as two inches across or more. Today we came upon a recent hatch, with many quarter-sized young spiders scurrying across the face of the boulder we were paddling beneath. These could be the egg cases the spiderlings emerged from.

As I said, those spiders were scurrying, and as fast as their little legs would carry them, so most of my photos were just a blur. But I did get to stare down this one for long enough to get a shot. Here's lookin' at ya, kid!

Rounding Rippled Rocks Point, we entered a flooded marsh with a beautiful island in the middle. My name for this little piece of heaven is Three Pine Island. See why?

Along the edges of the marsh, the flowers were blooming abundantly. Here's purple Pickerelweed and rosy pink Swamp Milkweed.

Even the rocks had little garden patches of lovely blooms. There's Helenium here (yellow) and Boneset (white) and pink-leaved Marsh St. Johnswort, and if you look closely you might see the tiny blue bells of Blue Marsh Bellflower tucked in among sedges and ferns. Cardinal Flower reigns on the bank beyond.

Sue thought this arrangement was worth a photograph, too.

And I thought Sue was worth a photograph, as well. The whole arrangement put me in mind of a painting by Winslow Homer.

New Finds in the Bog

Ed Miller searches the bog for rare plants, surrounded by heath shrubs and cottongrass.

Every month brings something new to find in the wild, and that's especially true of such fabulous places as bogs. Unfortunately, most bogs can be pretty difficult to get to and even harder to get around in. But there's one bog not too far from Saratoga that one can just mosey into, without having to haul a boat through brambles or push through impenetrable undergrowth. I asked my friend Ed to come there with me today, because he'd told me he'd seen a rare plant called Podgrass growing in another bog, and I hoped he could find some in mine. I'd heard reports that it used to grow there.

Well, we didn't find Podgrass today, but we did find some other interesting plants, two of which were new to me. The first was this beautiful Swamp Loosestrife (Decodon verticillatus), also called Water Willow.

Its purple flowers growing in spikes resemble those of the dreaded alien aggressor, Purple Loosestrife (and the two are indeed related), but this one is a native plant that minds its manners and lets other wetland species survive around it. Ed was a little surprised to see it growing out in the bog, since it usually grows in less acidic wetlands.

Here's another new plant for me, called Yellow Bartonia (Bartonia virginica), and believe me, it was some kind of miracle that I ever saw it. The bog we were tromping was at least the size of two football fields, and coming across this wee little sprig of a thing in all that sphagnum and blueberry and knee-high sedge was like finding a needle in a haystack. And we never found another.

Ed would not concede that this was indeed Bartonia until he had consulted his many manuals at home, but I'm sticking my neck out here and asserting that it is. After looking at many images on the web, I have isolated five features that distinguish this tiny plant and match the one we found: Clusters of small yellow-green flowers, a five-angled stem, four minute petal lobes protruding beyond the sepals, the small opposite scales on the stem instead of leaves, and the bog habitat. What else could it be?

Some old friends were still hanging on in the bog, including just a few White Fringed Orchids. Although many of the blooms on this flower stalk have withered and turned brown, one or two were as stunning as ever.

Much of the sphagnum growing here was a rich burgundy red and quite beautiful to behold. This baby Black Spruce was growing happily here, and Ed was happy to find it.

Most of the small Black Spruce growing out here are clones sprung up from the buried branches of old trees sinking ever deeper beneath the sphagnum mat, but Ed found a few tiny ones that appeared to have sprouted from seed and thus had their own root systems. Ed has established and maintains a miniature bog exhibit at the Landis Arboretum west of Albany, and miniature trees like this are exactly what he needs to complete the habitat. Luckily, I had the right-size plastic bag so that he could take one home.

Off to the Races

The distinctive roof line of the Saratoga Race Track, the oldest race track in the country

Racing season in Saratoga: Yeah, I complain about traffic jams and attitudinous crowds pushing their way around town and in front of me in the supermarket line, but you know what? It's kind of fun. Saratoga is, after all, the oldest continuously running thoroughbred race track in the country, and it still exhibits a lot of that old-fashioned country-fair charm. I don't give a hoot about placing a bet, but I like to wander around the grounds, eyeballing the outrageous get-ups some people have on, admiring the horses, listening to music, and buying something disgustingly greasy to eat. The weather was nice today, not too hot, and I figured the crowds would be lighter on Monday than over the weekend, so I hopped on my bike and sailed over there to just look around. I even paid three bucks to enter the gates.

It may very well have been a lighter crowd than yesterday, but you couldn't tell by the looks of the picnic grounds.

I knew I was never going to find a place to sit down, so I headed right to the barbecue joint to fortify myself with the best pulled-pork sandwich I ever had.

A lively band was entertaining a crowd in front of the grandstand, so I stopped to bop along for a while, and then chat with the guy in the blue striped shirt. His name is Peter Davis, and he was responsible for turning two of my own kids into musicians, thanks to the music school he used to run here in Saratoga.

A wave of anticipation moved through the crowd as a parade of jockeys, dressed in their colorful "silks" that designate the stable of their mounts, made their way to the paddock to mount their horses for the next race. The bright colors enable the race announcer to tell who is who in the pack as they course along the far distant track. The announcer also needs to quickly forget that information and memorize a whole different set of silks for each race.

Young girls can be as crazy about jockeys as they are about horses. Here's a gaggle of them getting the autograph of one of their favorites.

One of the charms of the Saratoga track is the mix of members of every social class, from super-rich stable-owners to down-and-out desperate gamblers, and all sorts of folks in between. You can't always tell which is which, but clothing is often a clue.

So to which social class do these folks belong? All dressed in the kind of Victorian-era garb the first track-goers at Saratoga would have worn, they drew quite a few amused looks. (See the faces of those much-more-briefly attired girls on the left.)

The sound of the bugle calls the saddled and mounted horses from the paddock to the track. Many horse tracks have replaced the live bugler with recorded bugle calls, but tradition runs strong and deep at Saratoga.

The line-up of horses parades before the crowd before heading to the starting gate. At this point, each thoroughbred is accompanied by a "pony" such as this beautiful brown-and-white pinto. (The "ponies," usually more massive than the elegantly slender thoroughbreds, are used to help calm and control the often nervous racing horses.)

The fans get nervous, too. As the horses head onto the track, the crowd returns to the rail after placing their bets. It was fascinating to look down the rail at the many intent expressions -- and their marvelously varied headgear!

Speaking of headgear, ladies' fancy hats are de rigueur in the clubhouse area.

More casual attire is evident in the cheaper seats.

And they're OFF! Sorry I couldn't get a photo of the horses racing. They are, after all, the fastest animal afoot (for the distance), and they sped by in a blur too fast for my camera to catch. Here's a shot of the winner, though. He must have led the whole time, because he and his jockey are so clean. Horses that come from behind are usually covered with kicked-up dirt.

I wonder if this horse was a winner, too, because he is so clean, post-race.

I had left the track proper and biked around to the far side, where I stood near a rail to watch the horses slow down after passing the finish line. That way I stood a chance of actually getting a photo of one running. Well, I never learned if this horse won his race, but he certainly is a beauty.

Update: In the comments to this post, a commenter named Louise mentions a filly named Lisa's Booby Trap as having special meaning to her local community. I am happy to report that Lisa's Booby Trap did indeed win her race at Saratoga on Friday, August 6. There's an interesting story about this horse on the Albany Times Union's blog, "Saratoga Seen." You can find that blog by clicking here, turning the pages until you find the story "Filly fulfills a special role" by Christen Gowan.

Blooms and Bugs and Berries

While walking on a trail near Lake Lonely today, I spotted a beautiful patch of bright yellow Moneywort and dropped to my knees to take a photo.

Nose to the ground, I spotted this little white rear sticking out from the underside of a Moneywort leaf.

When I flipped the leaf over, here's what I saw: a furry little white moth who just wouldn't budge. Is this not an exquisite creature, with its ermine stole and Art Deco antennae? (Be sure to click on these photos to better see the detail.) I left my thumbnail in the photo, in order to provide scale.

Eventually, I managed to coax it onto my finger, where I lifted a wing to discover this orange abdomen hidden under those grey-spotted white wings.

As it crawled up onto my wrist, I was able to see it head-on. Whoa! Look at that orange and black beard! No, I guess that's really the marking on its breast. A very diagnostic marking, too, since it clinched its ID: this is a Virginian Tiger Moth (Spilosoma virginica), the moth of the Yellow Bear caterpillar.

And here is a Yellow Bear caterpillar, whose photo I took last October. A mighty cute critter, and at least twice the size of its moth.

These Pearl Crescent butterflies were far more active than that Yellow Bear moth. There were at least a dozen flitting about me as I walked through a sunny spot, but none would sit still for a photo, of course. Except for this pair, who seemed to only have eyes for each other.

I kept scenting perfume on the air, and looking up into the tall hedge of Phragmites that lined the trail, I saw masses of Ground Nut flowers twining around the canes. From afar, these flower clusters just look like brownish blobs, but up close, the convoluted structure of the flower is just amazing to behold. And their fragrance is enchanting.

Here's another enchanting close-up view. I noticed the sunlight illuming this Bittersweet Nightshade berry, and moved in close for a photo. That's when I noticed the crystal drops and the little bug. Hmmm . . . . I wonder if that bug is poking holes in those berries to make the juice run out?

I almost didn't bring my camera today, just meaning to get a little exercise on a trail where I thought there would not be much to see. Well, I didn't get much exercise, but I did find lots to see!