Nature Post (for those still present)!
Some flowers today! And other things. And I actually managed to successfully identify things, which makes me happy. And although the plants that will soon cover the entire shoreline of the lake are just getting started, I can see them preparing. And my ospreys are back, in the same nest and perched in the same tree.
Also, my extended family is having a very long and involved discussion that started with my dad notifying us how his back surgery went (fine, and he's at home recovering), and went on to a conversation about the merits of various sports teams. This rapidly degenerated when one of my cousins accidentally typed "Dicks" instead of "Ducks" and claimed his phone autocorrected it, so now we are demanding to know how often he types the word "dick" that his phone assumes that's what he always means to say...
ANYWAY. NATURE POST IS HAPPENING. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
This doesn't look like much now, but all those little sprouts will be taller than me by midsummer and covered with all sorts of flowers. The ecology of a lakeshore is very specialized and unique, because most plants do not tolerate having their roots immersed in water, so plants that have adapted to that can thrive in the nutritious mud. I've spent enough spring and summer cycles here now to know what sort of things I should expect to find in various places.
The lake water isn't high... the levels change very little regardless of the season because most of the extra water just floods into the swamplands at the far end of it... so it's never been clear why this picnic table ended up standing in a foot of water.
The chokecherry trees are dropping so many of their miniscule white petals right now that it looks like it's snowing. They cover the trail, get stuck in spider webs, and drift everywhere. They are lovely.
Under one of the pavilions located near the launches... these are, or were, carpenter bees, and apparently someone disapproved of them doing what they do, which is drilling thumb-sized holes into any available wood, including the wood you made your pavilion out of. Although their presence upsets picnic-goers, they are not at all aggressive and are very unlikely to sting, since they're solitary bees and stinging you means they don't get to survive to reproduce. The ones we have around here resemble bumblebees, bu they are darker and have a shiny blue-black body, where bumblebees are furry all over. I was pleased to notice that while I was looking at these, there were two or three more buzzing above my head looking for a good place to start drilling.
This plant looked a bit like the more familiar bladder campion, but I found it in a shadier spot, and the growth habit was different... somewhat taller and rangier, with slightly different leaves and more wide-open flowers. I was stuck on identification for a while until I figured out that it does NOT have ten petals... it has five very deeply lobed petals that appear to be separate. It is, in fact, Silene latifolia, or white campion. It is a nonnative weed, but not considered invasive. Wikipedia says that in England they are called Death Flowers or Grave flowers because they like the open ground of cemetaries and grow around tombstones.
The wild phlox is wide awake and in full bloom now, and will continue to be the predominant color along paths and roadsides for the next few weeks before they give way to the later summer flowers. The different colors are all the same species, which comes in whites, purples, and pinks, but around here they tend toward a pale purple with a slight pink tint. It's tricky to identify to a species because all members of the genus (there are 67) are called phlox and while some are upright and some are sprawling, they all have similar flowers.
My mystery plant (the one Honey and I debated) is definitely False Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum racemosum). I'm not sure what the first part of the Latin name means, but a "raceme" is exactly what these flower are... small clusters of flowers sprouting along a central stem, with several flowers on their own little "branch". The leaves still have the straight veins I recognized when they were little, but now that they've reached their full height they are almost unrecognizable, and I'd never have recognized the two as related if I hadn't caught some of the tiny ones putting up their first tiny cluster of flowers. Another discovery... a common plant that I see all summer, and an odd sprout I see in the spring, but had never been able to put together before.
Been seeing this everywhere but didn't have a name for it. Now I do: it's Sweet Cicely (a common name used for several members of this genus, but this one is Osmorhiza claytonii, native to the eastern USA and Canada. I would have recognized it later in the season because those little white flowers turn into annoying little burr-like seed pods that stick to your socks.
This is where the path wanders far up onto the hillside, leaving the lake on the other side of the road and well out of sight. This was bare hillside forty or fifty years ago and is caught up in the relatively rapid cycle of fast-growing, spindly trees that fight for light and fall easily in storms or to diseases. In this combination of tree nursery and graveyard, ferns thrive in the shadows and the rich soil created by decaying wood. There is very little light, because as soon as a young tree falls there are a dozen to fight for its place, so the understory consists entirely of shade-tolerant plants, and few things are as shade-tolerant as these ferns. The sight of an ocean of them spread out among the trees is always somewhat eerie to me... if you don't look too closely at the trunks and don't look up at the leaves, this could be a forest from a hundred million years ago.
If we're talking about things that would have belonged in a very ancient forest, this would not have been out of place. This is what's left of the flower of a tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera). They are often called tulip poplars, which they are not... they are more closely related to magnolias, another very, very ancient flowering plant. Like a magnolia, this flower has neither petals or sepals, but an indeterminate structure called a "tepal" (which is a stupid name but I suppose it explains what it is). They are not differentiated the way more modern flowers are, and it's thought that these ancient flowers predate bees and evolved to be pollinated by beetles. The cone in the middle is covered by little scales, a few of which are still attached, and the flowers come down when there are heavy winds. As for the bright orange markings... insects are excellent at seeing color, far exceeding humans in that realm, and the orange markings would be a signal to primitive pollinators accustomed to a landscape of mostly green. The tulip tree is one of the tallest trees in eastern North America and is valuable as a timber tree because it grows very straight, very fast, and very large. They are common in mid-stage forests but because they are not shade-tolerant, new ones have trouble getting started in a mature forest.
Another bizarre tangle of grape vines that are growing around and over each other since the tree they were climbing collapsed under their weight, leaving them in a knotted pile on the forest floor.
Mother osprey was in the nest today, with Father perched on his usual branch nearby, and they were extremely talkative, whistling and chirping alarm cries back and forth. I love to listen to them; their calls are beautiful and quite unique, very musical for such a large bird.
This is Mother osprey's threat stance, warning you that if you don't move along, she might come diving after you. She won't, really, but I'm sure it scares off most small predators that might be thinking about having baby ospreys for dinner. If the disturbance continues, she'll take off and circle the nest, calling out alarms to her mate, who sits in his tree and watches and occasionally whistles back to her, but otherwise does nothing. I don't usually see both of them at the nest, since one is usually hunting... the babies must be at a young and vulnerable stage, or else Mother has just brought back some food.
This is where I nearly always find one of them, but not usually both. One is usually off hunting. There isn't usually a parent in the nest, at least once the eggs are hatched... the young ones appear to have a pretty good layer of feathers and considering how big they have to get by the end of the season, they probably require a very large amount of fish.
I balance how much time I spend with these ospreys because they are clearly disturbed by my presence. When I get my kayak out on the water I'll go check on the other nest; because they are far up the lake where no motorboats or paths go, they are rarely bothered by anything and seem to think the kayak is an odd floating thing that means them no harm. While these ones, near the trail, are constantly worried and sending out their alarm calls when there are people near, the upper lake pair will whistle and chat to each other, but I've never heard an alarm call from them, except when the babies were learning to fly and Mother was not very pleased.
This video shows a beautiful, beautiful osprey; the call he's doing is their normal chatty call to each other.
This video shows a mother on her nest much like the one I saw today, and you can very clearly hear that the alarm call is quite different from their usual chatting and very distinctive.
And that's all for today, and for those of you who are here.
Also, my extended family is having a very long and involved discussion that started with my dad notifying us how his back surgery went (fine, and he's at home recovering), and went on to a conversation about the merits of various sports teams. This rapidly degenerated when one of my cousins accidentally typed "Dicks" instead of "Ducks" and claimed his phone autocorrected it, so now we are demanding to know how often he types the word "dick" that his phone assumes that's what he always means to say...
ANYWAY. NATURE POST IS HAPPENING. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
This doesn't look like much now, but all those little sprouts will be taller than me by midsummer and covered with all sorts of flowers. The ecology of a lakeshore is very specialized and unique, because most plants do not tolerate having their roots immersed in water, so plants that have adapted to that can thrive in the nutritious mud. I've spent enough spring and summer cycles here now to know what sort of things I should expect to find in various places.
The lake water isn't high... the levels change very little regardless of the season because most of the extra water just floods into the swamplands at the far end of it... so it's never been clear why this picnic table ended up standing in a foot of water.
The chokecherry trees are dropping so many of their miniscule white petals right now that it looks like it's snowing. They cover the trail, get stuck in spider webs, and drift everywhere. They are lovely.
Under one of the pavilions located near the launches... these are, or were, carpenter bees, and apparently someone disapproved of them doing what they do, which is drilling thumb-sized holes into any available wood, including the wood you made your pavilion out of. Although their presence upsets picnic-goers, they are not at all aggressive and are very unlikely to sting, since they're solitary bees and stinging you means they don't get to survive to reproduce. The ones we have around here resemble bumblebees, bu they are darker and have a shiny blue-black body, where bumblebees are furry all over. I was pleased to notice that while I was looking at these, there were two or three more buzzing above my head looking for a good place to start drilling.
This plant looked a bit like the more familiar bladder campion, but I found it in a shadier spot, and the growth habit was different... somewhat taller and rangier, with slightly different leaves and more wide-open flowers. I was stuck on identification for a while until I figured out that it does NOT have ten petals... it has five very deeply lobed petals that appear to be separate. It is, in fact, Silene latifolia, or white campion. It is a nonnative weed, but not considered invasive. Wikipedia says that in England they are called Death Flowers or Grave flowers because they like the open ground of cemetaries and grow around tombstones.
The wild phlox is wide awake and in full bloom now, and will continue to be the predominant color along paths and roadsides for the next few weeks before they give way to the later summer flowers. The different colors are all the same species, which comes in whites, purples, and pinks, but around here they tend toward a pale purple with a slight pink tint. It's tricky to identify to a species because all members of the genus (there are 67) are called phlox and while some are upright and some are sprawling, they all have similar flowers.
My mystery plant (the one Honey and I debated) is definitely False Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum racemosum). I'm not sure what the first part of the Latin name means, but a "raceme" is exactly what these flower are... small clusters of flowers sprouting along a central stem, with several flowers on their own little "branch". The leaves still have the straight veins I recognized when they were little, but now that they've reached their full height they are almost unrecognizable, and I'd never have recognized the two as related if I hadn't caught some of the tiny ones putting up their first tiny cluster of flowers. Another discovery... a common plant that I see all summer, and an odd sprout I see in the spring, but had never been able to put together before.
Been seeing this everywhere but didn't have a name for it. Now I do: it's Sweet Cicely (a common name used for several members of this genus, but this one is Osmorhiza claytonii, native to the eastern USA and Canada. I would have recognized it later in the season because those little white flowers turn into annoying little burr-like seed pods that stick to your socks.
This is where the path wanders far up onto the hillside, leaving the lake on the other side of the road and well out of sight. This was bare hillside forty or fifty years ago and is caught up in the relatively rapid cycle of fast-growing, spindly trees that fight for light and fall easily in storms or to diseases. In this combination of tree nursery and graveyard, ferns thrive in the shadows and the rich soil created by decaying wood. There is very little light, because as soon as a young tree falls there are a dozen to fight for its place, so the understory consists entirely of shade-tolerant plants, and few things are as shade-tolerant as these ferns. The sight of an ocean of them spread out among the trees is always somewhat eerie to me... if you don't look too closely at the trunks and don't look up at the leaves, this could be a forest from a hundred million years ago.
If we're talking about things that would have belonged in a very ancient forest, this would not have been out of place. This is what's left of the flower of a tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera). They are often called tulip poplars, which they are not... they are more closely related to magnolias, another very, very ancient flowering plant. Like a magnolia, this flower has neither petals or sepals, but an indeterminate structure called a "tepal" (which is a stupid name but I suppose it explains what it is). They are not differentiated the way more modern flowers are, and it's thought that these ancient flowers predate bees and evolved to be pollinated by beetles. The cone in the middle is covered by little scales, a few of which are still attached, and the flowers come down when there are heavy winds. As for the bright orange markings... insects are excellent at seeing color, far exceeding humans in that realm, and the orange markings would be a signal to primitive pollinators accustomed to a landscape of mostly green. The tulip tree is one of the tallest trees in eastern North America and is valuable as a timber tree because it grows very straight, very fast, and very large. They are common in mid-stage forests but because they are not shade-tolerant, new ones have trouble getting started in a mature forest.
Another bizarre tangle of grape vines that are growing around and over each other since the tree they were climbing collapsed under their weight, leaving them in a knotted pile on the forest floor.
Mother osprey was in the nest today, with Father perched on his usual branch nearby, and they were extremely talkative, whistling and chirping alarm cries back and forth. I love to listen to them; their calls are beautiful and quite unique, very musical for such a large bird.
This is Mother osprey's threat stance, warning you that if you don't move along, she might come diving after you. She won't, really, but I'm sure it scares off most small predators that might be thinking about having baby ospreys for dinner. If the disturbance continues, she'll take off and circle the nest, calling out alarms to her mate, who sits in his tree and watches and occasionally whistles back to her, but otherwise does nothing. I don't usually see both of them at the nest, since one is usually hunting... the babies must be at a young and vulnerable stage, or else Mother has just brought back some food.
This is where I nearly always find one of them, but not usually both. One is usually off hunting. There isn't usually a parent in the nest, at least once the eggs are hatched... the young ones appear to have a pretty good layer of feathers and considering how big they have to get by the end of the season, they probably require a very large amount of fish.
I balance how much time I spend with these ospreys because they are clearly disturbed by my presence. When I get my kayak out on the water I'll go check on the other nest; because they are far up the lake where no motorboats or paths go, they are rarely bothered by anything and seem to think the kayak is an odd floating thing that means them no harm. While these ones, near the trail, are constantly worried and sending out their alarm calls when there are people near, the upper lake pair will whistle and chat to each other, but I've never heard an alarm call from them, except when the babies were learning to fly and Mother was not very pleased.
This video shows a beautiful, beautiful osprey; the call he's doing is their normal chatty call to each other.
This video shows a mother on her nest much like the one I saw today, and you can very clearly hear that the alarm call is quite different from their usual chatting and very distinctive.
And that's all for today, and for those of you who are here.