So Long, Winter!

That's it, Winter!  So long!  Bye bye!  You're outa here! Take off!

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Spring won't be official until next week,  and we could still be walloped with heavy snows, as we have many times in the past.  But guess what?  The ICE is off the water!  And no matter how snowy or cold it may get for a day or two down the road, that ice is gone for good (or at least, until next winter).

Here's the Hudson River today: not even a bit of crust along the edge, nor a shred of a floe careering along on the current.  Free and clear!

And here's Mud Pond at Moreau Lake State Park, its breeze-swept surface open from shore to shore to reflect the blue of the sky. (Not counting some softening ice that remains in a bay.)

And here's another sure sign of Spring: the wee little lipstick-red, sea-anemone-shaped pistils of the female American Hazelnut flowers (Corylus americana).  Today's bright sunlight was picking out their tiny points of crimson among the bare twigs of the shrubs that line the trail around Mud Pond.

I left my finger in this photo to show how itty-bitty these flowers are.

I was truly surprised to find these female flowers, since hardly any male catkins dangled from neighboring hazelnut shrubs.  And even the few I could find were far from ready to open their scales and waft their pollen on the air toward the females.  Poor girls: flaunting their feminine charms in vain!

I found another interesting organism while poking about in the hazelnuts.  See how this little dead twig is stuck to the larger, living one?  The reddish stuff that has stuck it there is called Glue Crust Fungus (Hymenochaete corrugata), and believe it or not, that fungus has a good reason to do just that. Its strategy is to hoard dead hazelnut twigs for itself, gluing the dead twigs to living ones high in the shrubs, so they won't fall to the ground, where other, rival fungi could compete to consume them. Who could have guessed that a fungus could strategize like this? Sometimes, Nature absolutely astounds me!






And sometimes, too, Nature absolutely heals me!  Still feeling fatigue from a long bout of a supposedly "mild" form of pneumonia, I was grateful to find a fallen log I could rest on while walking around Mud Pond.  I basked in the warmth of the sun, feeling that energy shore up my own, as I delighted in the dazzling sparkles of sunlight dancing on water.  As I breathed in the sweet clear air, I felt it soothing my still-irritated lungs. No wonder they used to bring TB sufferers up to the Adirondacks to find healing from the very air!  I find that very believable on a gorgeous day like today and in a spectacularly beautiful place like this.

Up and Out!

The Skunk Cabbage DID wait for me!  By Wednesday this past week, I finally felt well enough to venture briefly into the woods.  So off I went to Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in Wilton, hurrying straight to a swale where massive numbers of curvaceous Morocco-red spathes protruded from the mud. Most were still so tightly closed that I couldn't peer within to see if the spadices were studded with open florets as yet.   But here and there I did find a few that were definitely "open for business," shedding their pollen and luring early insects by wafting their distinctive "fragrance" on the warming spring air.  Ta da!  Our first native wildflower of Spring, and this darned sickness didn't make me miss it!


That discovery pumped me up so, I decided to make one more outdoor stop before heading back to my recliner and an afternoon nap. Spring is the best time of year to experience the thrilling power of the magnificent Snook Kill waterfall off Greenfield Road, and it can easily be witnessed without having to venture far from the road.

Of course, as soon as I heard the roar of the falls, I longed to move closer to feel its power more directly.  The banks are so steep, however, I had to cling to tree trunks as I descended.  This was just one small section of the waterfall's turbulent course.

Here's where the Snook Kill takes its final plunge before charging along on its only-slightly-less- turbulent cliff-lined course toward the east.

It was truly a thrill for me to be out in the woods and along this gorgeous waterway, after so many days when I wondered if I would ever regain health and strength.  I was feeling super-psyched, indeed.  Except, guess what?  Later that night, while washing my face, I discovered a tick embedded behind my ear.  AAARGH!!!  Already?  On my very first day OUT?!! Ah well, time to dab on the DEET.

Still feeling a bit bummed by that bite the next day, I was granted a spirit-lifting sight right outside my breakfast window. A big flash of red caused me to lift my eyes from my eggs in time to witness this huge Pileated Woodpecker exploring our Box Elder just outside.  I guess I'm glad the bird didn't stay to rip the tree to shreds, but I sure felt blessed to have seen it stop by for a moment.

Hope Springs! Flowers Bloom!

What a Monday it was!  Sunny and warm, with temps approaching 70 degrees!  An unbelievably spring-like day for so early in March.  Sadly, my lungs are still too compromised by this recent illness to allow me to venture out to the woods to note what transformations must be occurring.  I fear that this year I will miss opening day for our very first flower of spring, the Skunk Cabbage. But then I remembered an even earlier bloomer I found in full flower on this date last year, the Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis).  And even better, I found it blooming right by the road near the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in Wilton.  I could drive right up to it!

And so I did.

And there it was: bright sunny flowers in multitudinous bloom, scattered across the dead brown leaves of the forest floor.  And all I had to do to enjoy it was stand by the side of the road.

Yeah, I know, for a native-plant snob like me, this flower shouldn't even count, since this Buttercup-family flower is an introduced alien species, native to the Mediterranean regions of Europe but not to North America.  Gardeners grow it here, of course, and why wouldn't they?  Who wouldn't want to step out their door and be greeted by these sunshine-bright blooms, even while snow still lies deep in the shaded areas of the garden?

I myself was certainly glad to see it, even though it was not in my own garden.  There is evidence here, though, that this patch of Winter Aconite was once part of SOMEbody's garden long ago, since these blooms were surrounded by a crumbling stone wall with moss-covered steps leading down the roadside bank.

When I ventured down these crumbling stone steps to photograph the Aconite, I discovered a second early-blooming garden flower called Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), only these were still in bud, having just pushed their way up through the crusted snow in a more shaded area of this plot.  Again, this is not a North American native wildflower, but it is frequently planted in gardens here, where it obviously survives some of the coldest winters in the country.

Meanwhile, our native early-blooming wildflowers are still tucked in under the snow that remains  shin-deep throughout the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve.  I hope they will wait to bloom until I am well enough to greet them when they open their faces to the spring.

The Odonata And Their Amazing Eyesight

A blue-bodied, green-faced male Eastern Pondhawk studies me with his huge super-accurate black eyes.

Oh, it was cruel to step out onto my sun-warmed front porch this morning to pick up my New York Times ! The air was kind and scented by the smell of softening soil, the snow had pulled back from the edge of the walk, and the clear lilting calls of a Tufted Titmouse (Wheat! Wheat! Wheat!) definitively proclaimed that Spring Is In The Air!  But sadly, with lungs still too congested to deeply breathe that sweet air without hacking and gagging, I wasn't walking anywhere today except to my breakfast table to read my paper before heading back to the couch.

And there in my paper I found consolation: a wonderful, full-page, full-color piece about some of my favorite critters, the Odonata (damselflies and dragonflies), and their amazing eyesight.  Described as a group of insects that "took to the air long before birds were even on the evolutionary horizon," these damsels and dragons were said to have vision "swifter than any vertebrate's studied thus far." And the rest of the article -- "The Killer Neural Wiring That Links Eyes and Wings" by Veronique Greenwood -- describes in fascinating detail how researchers found that out.   Here's a link to the piece so you can enjoy it yourself:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/science/jewel-wing-damselfly-dragonfly.html

The opening lines of that article sure drew me in:  "Jewel wing damselflies live up to their names: They dart through the filtered sunlight of ferny stream beds and forests like wands made of brilliantly colored gems."  Yes!  Exactly!  I have seen them myself, fluttering on coal-black wings (I know them by the common name of Ebony Jewelwings), flashing a glittering iridescence that's almost impossible to capture with my camera.  But those opening lines inspired me to search my blog for any photos I might have taken of them.  I did find some, and I even managed to catch a trace of their color.  Here's one:

And right after that photo, I found another of that same male Jewelwing, after it had darted off in a flash and almost immediately dashed back to exactly the very same spot, this time chewing its prey.  Talk about proof of these super-swift predators' prowess, as that article had described!

Of course, as I searched my blog for a Jewelwing photo, I came across many photos of other damsels and dragons.  What a bunch of gorgeous critters they are!  So I dredged some photos from out of the depths of computer storage to enjoy them once again.  Sadly, most of my damselfly photos are blurred, but I did find one of a coppery-colored Spreadwing (species unknown by me) whose glass-clear wings sparkled with iridescence.

And here was one of the Bluets that actually landed and sat still for the picture taking. Such a beautiful, vivid blue!

The dragonflies are often easier to photograph: one, because they are bigger, but also because they flutter less and perch longer, and they often return again and again to the very spot you have frightened them from, if you just wait, creeping closer between each return. And oh, is it worth the wait! Some are so colorful!  For example, what a dazzler this guy is, a male Calico Pennant with valentine-heart-colored markings. Even his stigma are red, as well as the veins in his wings.

And the female Calico Pennant is equally colorful, although marked with schoolbus-yellow in the same places her mate sports red.

The Blue Dasher has the most beautiful turquoise-colored eyes as well as a tiger-striped thorax.

The Autumn Meadowhawk has glossy brown eyes and an abdomen red as sun-ripened tomatoes. The stigma are red, as well.

The male Slaty Skimmer is a pretty powdery blue, with a glossy black face, while his mate is mostly brown.

In the case of the Eastern Pondhawk, however, the female is the more vividly colored, a truly unforgettable Kelly green.

The male Eastern Pondhawk might be mistaken for that Slaty Skimmer pictured above, since both have bodies of powdery blue.  But if this guy would turn and look at us, we would see that his face is the same Kelly green as the rest of his mate's body is.  You can get a close look at his face in the photo at the top of this blog.

And here's another look at that male Eastern Pondhawk's green face, the photo taken when he'd landed on my knee and stayed there studying me for the longest time.  I was able to look him right in his bulbous black, super-accurate eyes and even marvel at what looked like a mustachioed "upper lip." The sight of that mustache made me laugh. And I swear that dragonfly opened his mouth and laughed right back at me!

Storing Our Souls with Beauty

Apropos of the blog I posted earlier today, in which I wrote of finding hope for healing in photos of flowers that offered the promise of spring, my husband sent me a poem he found online about very much the same sentiments.  And once again, I searched my blogposts of the past 11 years, finding images similar to those this poet describes in her poem.  Here's the poem:

THE DAYS TO COME
by Medora C. Addison (American, born 1891)

Now shall I store my soul with silent beauty,
     Beauty of drifting clouds and mountain heights,
Beauty of sun-splashed hills and shadowed forests,
     Beauty of dawn and dusk and star-swept nights. 

Now shall I fill my heart with quiet music,
    Song of the wind across the pine-clad hill,
Song of the rain and, fairer than all music,
    Call of the thrush when twilight woods are still. 

So shall the days to come be filled with beauty,
     Bright with the promise caught from eastern skies;
So shall I see the stars when night is darkest,
     Still hear the thrush’s song when music dies. 

How happy I am that I have stored not only "my soul with silent beauty," but also my blog with many of the same images the poem presents.

There were photos of "drifting clouds and mountain heights":

Others of "sun-splashed hills" . . .

. . . and of  "shadowed forests":

Many of my photos represent the "Beauty of dawn":

As well as the beauty of "dusk":

But only one could I find that came close to depicting a "star-swept night", even though the "star" was instead the  shining planet Venus:

It amazed me how often I ventured out even on rain-soaked days, for I found many photos through which I could almost hear the "Song of the rain":

I am sorry I can't post here in any way that would thrill the hearer the "quiet music" that I myself have thrilled to hear in these very settings, the "Song of the wind across the pine-clad hill" or the "Call of the thrush's song when twilight woods are still."  But every time I look at these photos I hear all that music and more: the loon's haunting calls across Adirondack lakes, or the sweet lilting pipings and trills of the Winter Wren, or the quiet lapping of wavelets on the stony shore of Moreau Lake, or the splashing and tinkling of a mountain stream, or the comical conversational cackles of ravens on cliffs above the Hudson River, or so many more.  And I haven't even mentioned the wonderful scents and tastes these places hold for me and which their photos evoke.

What a storehouse of joy my blog has become for me, recording in nearly 2,000 posts so much evidence of all the wondrous natural beauty that surrounds me!  I do so hope it has offered some similar joy to those who read it.

A Virtual Walk Into Spring

Ah, here it is at last: the first day of March!  Yes, I know, winter's not officially over yet, snow still lies thick on the ground around here, but the sun is bright today and the temps are mild, and I would love to go out for a walk in the woods.  But I'm still too sick from a bout of pneumonia to walk much further than from the couch to the bathroom to hack up chest phlegm.  So instead, I took a walk through my old blog posts, feasting my eyes on those photos that reassure me that spring will indeed be here soon.

It's even possible that Skunk Cabbage is already melting the snow around its Morocco-red spathes and offering its pollen-laden spadices to early pollinators.

It soon will be time to rummage through Hazelnut twigs, hoping to discover the bright-ruby female flowers hiding among them, so tiny as to be almost invisible to anyone but the most persistent seeker. But this flower doesn't need to lure pollinators with showy blooms, since abundant male catkins are wafting their powder-fine pollen toward them from neighboring shrubs.

Next to come will be the striking sunbursts of Coltsfoot, the first flower of spring that actually looks like a flower -- the kind we would draw as kids with a bright-yellow crayon.  Not a native wildflower, but the bees and other bugs are sure happy to find its abundant pollen while our native floral offerings remain exceedingly scarce. And it often grows abundantly in nutrient-poor "waste places" where few other flowers would thrive.

Soon to follow are the wildflowers of the forest floor, the ones that need to bloom and set seed before the tree canopy closes over and gobbles all the sunshine for itself.  Leading this parade of beauties are two species of Hepatica, sharp-lobed and round-lobed, in all their lovely shades of purple and pink and sparkling white.

At about the same time, wetlands and roadside ditches will be exploding with gold, as the stunningly generous Marsh Marigolds burst into bloom.  Many of our other spring wildflowers are rather shy and retiring, needing to be diligently sought if we want to enjoy their beauty.  Not so for this gorgeous bloomer, so showy it's hard to believe it could be a wildflower.

An equally generous bloomer in its woodland habitat is the far more demure Spring Beauty, with its candy-striped flowers crowned with baby-pink anthers. When this lovely wildflower finds a habitat it likes, it sure doesn't hold back, but often decorates the forest floor as far as the eye can see.

No flower signals Spring more beautifully than Bloodroot, with its haloes of pure-white petals circling sunbursts of golden anthers.  Sadly, we have only a small window of opportunity to marvel at the gorgeousness of this native wildflower, since it seems it has only opened its petals before they begin to fall.  Luckily, they often bloom in such abundance along roadsides that we know when they have arrived and we can feast our eyes on their beauty without having to run to the woods.

This is just a small sampling of all the floral joys to come in the marvelous months of spring.  As I look forward to our re-encounters not that many weeks away,  I feel better already, resolved to rest up for the woodland walks that await.


While enjoying this virtual wildflower walk through old blog posts, I happened upon this photo of Scotch Pine bark, and I thought it was so stunning I wanted to share it again.  I know that most lumbermen hate Scotch Pine for its useless timber, and botanists disdain it for its alien status. But oh my, isn't this lovely? If we put a frame around this section of bark, we could hang it in a museum and call it abstract art.