The forest knows its time

This fall is already turning into a very interesting one for me to watch. The change from green to yellow progresses noticeably a little bit more every day. This year I can’t say that dryness is a factor, nor can I say that cool nights are speeding up the process. The forest is anything but dry this year. The night time temperature is pretty average and still flirting with 60 degrees.

So despite having every weather advantage that could extend the summer season, the forest still knows it is time to begin changing from green to yellow. I fully expected the green color to last longer than usual this year. The forest still hasn’t taken on that dull green shade usually prevalent in late summer. The forest still looked as though it was mid-summer right up through Labor Day.

Since then, however, the leaves have begun changing their color, going directly from a deep green to yellowing, without much of that dull shade of green evident at all. Now it’s true the fall season is still very early and the leaves haven’t yet fallen, so it is possible the leaves will eventually hang on for longer than usual. But the evidence I see in the forest today is that the season is changing and it’s pretty much right on schedule.

So I’m left with the idea that the shortening hours of daylight plays far more of a role in when the leaves change than does moisture or temperature. Those two factors may not even be real factors at all, since this year both seem to be at optimal levels for extending the season, and yet the yellowing is still on schedule.

The forest always has lessons to teach, in every year, in every season. I never tire of learning them. I doubt I ever will.

Today's photo are dogwood berries, the first red shade I've seen in the forest this season.

Looking towards Roundtop

The morning was still fully dark when Dog and I took our walk today. Not even a hint of dawn colored the eastern sky. Orion was high overhead. Today was the first I’d seen this warrior-protector since last spring. If I’d been awake at 2 or 3 a.m. and walked down the lane to where the woods opens to the sky, I would have seen it months earlier. But that didn’t happen, and today marked the first clear morning when it was still dark enough for me to see the constellation.

The clear morning was a continuation of yesterday’s clear sky, which you can see in today’s photo. I was hawkwatching up on Waggoner’s Gap again, staring into the blue sky and looking for hawks. I knew it would be a good day, as that nasty east coast storm finally moved off and after two days of rain finally allowed the birds to fly. It was a good day, but it would have been better with a few clouds in that sky.

The one-day record for Bald Eagles at Waggoner’s Gap is 30, and for a few hours yesterday, it looked as though the record might fall, but in the end it didn’t. Still a day when 28 Bald Eagles are seen can’t in any way be termed shabby. Back 25 years or so ago, when I hawkwatched almost exclusively at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, a group of the regular hawkwatchers had a habit, after the day’s hawkwatching was over, of toasting each eagle we saw that day with our alcoholic beverage of choice. It was a rare day to see one, much rarer still to see 2 or 3. We gave up the practice about the time when 7 were seen on one day. Back then, the thought of seeing 28 in a single day wasn’t even dreamed about.

Today’s photo was taken atop Waggoner’s Gap looking south towards Roundtop. Roundtop is the second bump from the left side of the shot. I’ve always wondered if I turned on all the lights in the cabin, if I could spot the lights from this distance. I know I couldn’t now, with all the leaves on the trees. Perhaps I’ll try that later when the leaves are down.

Yellowing

In the span of less than a week, the pace of yellowing in the forest around Roundtop is picking up, especially in the understory. When I look closely, nearly every one of the smaller plants has some level of yellowing. On some it may be a single leaf, or it may be the edges of many leaves, or the lowest leaves may be yellowing.

Last week, the forest still looked like July. Today, it doesn’t. It looks more like a combination of August and September. With rain pouring down at the moment, it’s even possible that a few leaves will drop, forced down by the weight of the raindrops. I am especially attuned to the pace of that because every leaf that falls opens up the sky around the cabin a little bit. I am ready for that part.

I appreciate the new variation in the color of the forest. Green is a lovely color, but even a lovely color in monochrome loses its appeal after a while. That goes for life too. Whether it’s a daily routine that doesn’t vary or the people we are around, too much sameness soon grows into a rut. Sometimes I think fall is nature’s way of reminding me that change is not only a good thing but something to seek out every now and again just for its own sake.

Turkeys again

The wandering Wild Turkeys are playing in the road again. This is becoming, if not a daily occurrence, at least a common one. In the question of whether turkeys are the smartest or the dumbest, I’m starting to lean towards dumbest with this group.

They stop traffic, not because of their rarity, but so people don’t have turkey splattered all over the cars. And even when people stop, that doesn’t hurry them across the road. If anything, they move slower or stop entirely when a car nears.

"What’s that?" they seem to say, all stopping to look at the approaching car.

"I don’t know but it’s not a turkey."

"Big, though, isn’t it?"

"Very. Weird color, too."

"Why are its eyes so bright?"

"No idea. Maybe it’s an owl."

"No. Can’t be. I don’t see any wings."

"Silly. Owls are myths."

"No, they’re not. Tom roosted in a tree with one once."

"Tom was drunk on those wineberries."

"What should we do?"

"Let’s ignore it. Maybe it will go away."

Why Waggoner's Gap is Good for Hawkwatching

Waggoner’s Gap is a great spot for hawkwatching both because of its general location and its specifics. As far as its general location, the gap is along the line of Appalachian ridges that stretch in a NE-SW direction across much of Pennsylvania.

Raptors and other migrants often use the thermals generated along the ridges to help ease the difficulty of flying the long distances of migration. Migration is tough enough without having it be more difficult than it need be. If the birds can glide along a thermal and rest their wings for a bit, that is what makes it easier for them.

Ridge tops place hawkwatchers higher up and so afford better looks at the birds as they pass. Even with the added elevation of sitting on a ridge top, it’s not uncommon for birds to fly higher than hawkwatchers can see, especially in the middle part of the day when the thermals are strongest. Better looks at the passing migrants are usually found from around 10-12 and again from 3-5 p.m., when the thermals aren’t as strong and the birds are lower.

The specifics of Waggoner’s Gap’s location—this big rocky outcropping that creates an opening in the forest and affords great views —means that hawkwatchers can see the migrants approach and watch them flying past. Just having the hawks fly by a spot is no good for hawkwatchers if the area around that spot is forested or otherwise has a blocked view. Many spots are in the right location for hawkwatching. Not many have open areas from which you can actually see the hawks. Waggoners Gap has both. In today's photo, the view is to the north.

What Waggoner’s Gap and indeed much of Pennsylvania does not have is comfort. If you like hawkwatching, you need to learn how to sit on rocks for hours at a time. In this state, it’s rare to find a good hawkwatching spot that doesn’t involve sitting on rocks because that's where the open areas on the mountains are. Many of the watches also require a certain amount of walking up to and over rocks to get to the spot. Even in those spots where there is room for a chair, carrying one up to the hawkwatching spot is usually not an option. Bring a cushion. If you hawkwatch in Pennsylvania, the odds are you will need one because the rocks never get any softer.

Hawkwatching at Waggoner's Gap

I made a trip to Waggoner’s Gap for hawkwatching over the holiday weekend. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of hawks—the season is yet early, hawk numbers over the previous week all along the east coast were still stuck in August, and the weather forecast was the same as it had been for the past week. But none of that deterred me. The time I have for sitting on top of mountains looking for hawks is far more limited than I’d like it to be, so whenever I can cobble together a few hours for my favorite activity, I go.

So imagine my surprise when the hawkwatching was actually quite good. Broadwings, Sharpies, Coops, RT’s, a few k-birds, bald eagles and Ospreys, even a harrier. (What did she see, I can hear you saying). Broadwings are Broad-winged hawks, Sharpies are Sharp-shinned Hawks, Coops are Cooper’s Hawks, RTs (aka redtails or tails) are Red-tailed Hawks and K-birds are American Kestrels. The non-raptors included 4 ravens, which I also love to see.

Today’s photo was taken atop the hawk watch at Waggoner’s Gap, which is along Rte. 74 some 5-6 miles north of Carlisle. The view is to the south, and I could see Roundtop Mtn. across the valley from my perch on Waggoner’s rocks, though you can’t see it in the photo.

For those who might want to visit their local hawkwatch, the peak of the Broadwing migration will be September 17-18 in most areas. Weather can push that date forward or backward by a few days, but given normal weather, that’s when these birds fly. And the peak day usually brings thousands of the birds, often circling (kettling) together in large flocks. It’s quite an amazing sight to see hundreds or even thousands in a single group, and I highly recommend that everyone partake of this amazing natural wonder at least once in their lives.

My day on Waggoner’s Gap will take more than a single blog post to write about, so be prepared to hear more about it during the rest of the week.

Annual discombobulation

The year has reached the point where I experience a few days of discombobulation. The ever-shortening days are now poking into the rhythm of my day. The forest is nearly dead dark just a few minutes after 8 p.m. here. At 8:30 p.m. the sky is filled with stars, and I find myself yawning the way I do at 10 p.m. in the summer. I’m not about to go to bed at 8:30, but it will take a few days before I can convince my body that I shouldn’t.

In the mornings now, I am literally up before the chickens, who sleep on their perches as I walk Dog and Baby Dog. Today it was hard to drag myself out of bed, and it wasn’t even cold. It was, however, very dark.

I always get past this sense that I should go to sleep with the sunset and stay in bed until daylight, but it takes a while. I’m not quite there yet.

How long the quiet?

The quiet around Roundtop continues on these late-summer-but-feels-like-fall days. Mist rises in the early morning but soon dissipates. Even the air is still; not even the leaves rustle. With no competition from the forest, Blue jays sound even louder than usual, and the owls sound closer than they are.

Perhaps I have even more reason to enjoy this lovely weather while it lasts. The folks over at Accuweather are predicting a long, snowy and harsh winter for the eastern U.S. Click here for the full prediction. Thanks to Sam, my former boss, now blogging over at Heart Matters, for the heads up on this one.

My own experience suggests nearly the opposite of this prediction, however. I have found that it’s as though the weather can’t stay untypical for too long and rights itself by going a bit further in whatever the other direction for the next season or two would be. So I have noticed that a warm winter is often followed by cooler than average spring. An untypically warm spring would be followed by a cooler than average summer and so on. Sometimes the untypically warmer or cooler weather lasts for two seasons instead of one before the correction begins, but I can’t remember three seasons in a row that were overly warm or cool.

That said, as someone who usually likes winter quite a lot (I live next to a ski area, after all) I would not be unhappy to be proven wrong this time around. And truthfully, my area is due for a real winter again. It’s been some years since I’ve had one.

Quiet evenings

Cool and quiet is how I’d describe the weather and the activity around Roundtop for the past day or so. The breeze is light. The humidity is low. The evenings grow ever shorter but are lovely for as long as they last. Even the mosquitoes seem to be hiding or sleeping or at least not bothersome.

I am trying to learn to take the quiet as it comes and enjoy the brief respite. I know it will be brief. Quiet never lasts. Quiet is rare enough that I find changing gears to match its slower pace difficult. Quiet seems an anomaly in life. Life usually moves quickly—too quickly, of course—and my days are arranged to get as much done as possible before it gets dark, before the evening ends, before winter sets in or whatever the next event is.

The quiet of these days is a signal to change those gears and slow down for a bit. Relax. Enjoy the evening as the sun slowly sets behind the mountain. Watch how the light dissipates from the forest moment by moment. Notice how stillness creeps through the woods. Feel the warmth shiver away with the light. Hear the last call of the pewee. This, too, is important.

Autumnal Pool??

So, do I still call this a vernal pool if it lasts until autumn? Usually these little wet spots don’t make it through July, but this year they are still going strong on September 1. Last evening I found several of them, usually laden with frogs.

And speaking of frogs...last year I walked around Roundtop’s newest pond and counted 70-couple frogs leaping ahead of me in a kind of froggy ballet, one after the other. That was nothing. This year so many leap into the pond at the same time that I can’t begin to count them. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 70 frogs in 30 feet.

Dog and I walked along the edge of the pond last evening for just 100 yards or so, and I know we saw hundreds of them. This summer’s rainy weather was no doubt right up their alley. I’d like to think all the frogs would draw plenty of unusual shorebirds to the mountain top, but since I haven’t seen many yet, I doubt that will happen. The water level is higher than it usually is by this point in the season, and shorebirds crave mudflats.

Last night the temperature dropped into the late-September range. This morning it was 52 at the cabin. The local screech owl was screeching near the cabin. I heard it when I woke up to pull a blanket over me in the middle of the night. I think it’s going to be an interesting fall—cold weather the last night of August, lots of rain in the summer. I don’t know what the fall will bring, but I’m looking forward to seeing how the new season plays out and how it is different.

Almost September = late July??

Does this look like almost September to you? It doesn’t look that way to me either. I guess this is what buckets of rain in August means. Almost September looks like mid-late July. Usually, this late in August, the forest, the grass, the fields are all turning brown. As August is usually hades-hot and dry here, brown vegetation is not a surprising result.

This year August has been cool and wet, and this morning’s photo shows the result of that. Today, the weather feels like early fall, like late September perhaps. The temperature was in the upper 50’s this morning; the humidity has crashed to about 0 (after a deluge of 2" on Friday evening that cleared it). I’m not complaining, though I feel this weird disconnect about a forest that looks like late July but feels like late September. Usually, I don’t see a two month spread between how the forest looks and how it feels.

I have no idea what will happen in September this year. I suspect the long stretch of wet weather will extend the life of the leaves hanging on to the trees, even if the temperatures stay on the cool side. We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out in another 4-8 weeks. I’d like to think the moisture would help create brilliant fall colors in another several weeks. The fall colors haven’t been much to speak of for the past few years, mostly because of dryness. Last year was better than the year before, but still wasn’t up to standard, in my opinion. I wouldn’t mind if the fall color lasted longer than a week, either. I just hope it’s not the green shade that lasts into November.

About the only prediction I think I can safely make is that I don’t expect to see a "typical" September because of August’s weather. What form that untypical September will take, though, isn’t something I can predict. And how deeply this unique August weather will affect the forest even later into the fall is yet another mystery. Stay tuned. I think it’s going to be interesting.

The hazards are different here...

Over the years, I’ve learned that the road hazards associated with living in the woods are different from those of suburbia. Falling or fallen trees can appear out of nowhere. So can deer, which are usually worse than the tree issue because they move. Squirrels and rabbits dart across the road, zigzagging like mad. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost hit one, despite a panic-braking stop.

Hazards like snapping turtles or box turtles are of a different class. With those, I usually stop the car and either move them or try to lure them off the road. Then, the hazard is that some other driver, rounding a curve or coming down one of Pennsylvania’s ever-present hills, isn’t paying attention and doesn’t stop for me. Of course, where I live, it’s easy to go 20-30 minutes without another car passing by, but still, people who live in rural areas don’t pay attention while driving to any greater degree than anyone else.

Today, my hazard was these wild turkeys. I was past the forest and into rural lands by about a quarter of a mile when I crested a hill and—there they were. I hit the brakes and let them slowly amble across the road. They were in no hurry. They gave a look as though I was at fault for disturbing them.

A man I used to work with, who was a dedicated turkey hunter, once told me that turkeys had the rare ability to seem like the smartest animal in the woods—and the dumbest. I’m not sure which category this morning’s episode falls into.

Busy day around the mountain

Today’s butterfly is another summer resident at Roundtop—the great spangled frittilary. These are large butterflies, nearly the size of the swallowtails, so they are hard to miss. I don’t think I’ve ever met an ugly butterfly, but somehow the bigger ones are even prettier than the smaller ones. I guess it’s just that there’s more prettiness to look at in the big ones.

Perhaps it’s only that the weather has improved, but I am seeing more animals and birds around the mountain this week than I have for a while. Raccoon paid a visit to my front porch last evening, to the outrage of Baby Dog. The foxes have been tooling around the woods, too. I’ve been hearing their barks again, often at some distance from the cabin.

Swallows seem to be gone entirely now, replaced by crows who gather in groups large and small and wander around looking for trouble so they can happily announce it to the world. Crows are only happy, I think, when they find trouble to report. Of course, trouble to a crow is often of a minor nature. If there’s no big trouble to report, they are just as happy to report on someone walking across a ski slope or Dog nosing in the grass. If the trouble turns out to be something major, like a Red-tailed Hawk sitting quietly in a tree, so much the better, but really, any kind of trouble will do.

The teenaged titmice and chickadees also seem to be on the prowl more than they were just a week or so ago. Animals really understand the mean of the old farmer’s adage about "making hay while the sun shines." They know when to lay low and when to be out and about. Right now, they are all out and about.

Sorry about that

I just realized that I haven’t posted any butterfly photos for a long time. Watching several of them yesterday evening reminded me I was overdue. Actually, 2009 has been a pretty good year for the larger butterflies, at least according to my totally unscientific memory of their numbers. Tiger swallowtails, zebra swallowtails, the first of the migrating monarchs, all seem to be in decent supply.

I’ve seen more zebra swallowtails this year than I ever remember seeing, though I haven’t been able to snap a photo of one. You’ll have to settle for this photo of a tiger swallowtail. Usually, butterflies are, well, flighty and skittish. Last evening, the ones I saw weren’t. Perhaps they were simply drunk on thistle nectar. Perhaps it was the approach of evening and the need to fill up that kept them still for so long. In any event, they were cooperative.

On Roundtop, several places are great butterfly magnets. One is down at Roundtop’s oldest snow-making pond, often dubbed "the west pond." There, in the sun along the edge of the pond are cattails, thistles and nice puddles of drying mud that always attracts butterflies. It’s down there that I’ve occasionally spied but never photographed Roundtop’s rarest butterfly, the giant swallowtail.

The second good butterfly spot takes less time and arranging of my day to get to, and that’s where I took this photo. Believe me, this little spot is nothing special. It’s just a patch of mostly thistle at the edge of the north parking lot. The patch gets morning sun, and goldfinch find it nearly as wonderful a place as do the butterflies. I don’t know why the spot is so special. To me, it looks like any other patch of thistle that is commonly seen around the mountain. Perhaps, the number of thistle are a tad more here. Perhaps, the plants look a tad more sturdy. Perhaps. It’s a very close call, in any event, to my eye, but apparently not to the goldfinch and butterflies.

A season's changes

Ah, what a difference a day makes. Even just a hint of a breeze from the north or northwest is enough to chase out the humidity that comes on the southern breezes. The temperature is still warm, but the lowered humidity makes it feel about 20 degrees cooler. And best of all, at least from my point of view, the forest may even start to dry out for a novel change.

A few hours of nicer weather, and I’m already plotting visits to hawkwatches and deeper forays into the woods. I am actually thinking about cooking dinner for a change. Perhaps my back forest will dry out enough to start some weed-whacking. Fall is in the air, so close I can smell it.

Around the cabin, the year’s crop of young birds are growing into wild teenagers. Yesterday a young blue jay sat on the door handle of my screen door and screamed at the cat inside. That’s not the kind of thing an adult blue jay would do. I didn’t think the door handle was big enough for a blue jay to perch on.

I am already seeing signs of songbird migration heading to parts south, though Roundtop’s summer residents don’t yet appear to be among them. The pewee still calls in the early morning. The woods are still overcrowded with chipping sparrows. Eastern kingbirds still float across the grassy ski slopes. Swallows and chimney swifts appear to be on the move. Crows too, perhaps, as I seem to be seeing more of them and those frequently moving to the south. Little signs of fall, another one or two each day now, are coming to the mountain.

Change in the weather, change in the season

Soupy weather is on its way out here at Roundtop, though as you can see from this morning’s photo, not all the cloudiness is yet gone. Hurricane Bill kept the moisture around for two days longer than it was supposed to stay here, though at least I didn’t get a hurricane’s rain or wind from that bad boy.

I’ll be happy to see everything dry out for the first time in several weeks. Dealing with mud and finding that food went bad quickly became a regular occurrence that soon got old. Given that it will soon be September, I am hoping that the drier weather and high pressure also signals a solid step towards fall. The timing is favorable for that to be the case. I fully expect some more hot days before cold weather arrives, though the time for heatwaves and continued high humidity could, just could, be past. Or so I fervently hope.

Northwest winds bode well for cooler weather and the start of hawkwatching season. For me, fall hawkwatching is hunting season, fishing season, football season and NASCAR all wrapped up into one. There is spring hawkwatching, too, of course, but usually that is only good enough to keep me from going mad until the next fall. I suppose I should say that other birds will begin to migrate soon too, but it’s always the hawks that capture my attention this time of year. Bald eagles are already moving in half-decent numbers, and Ospreys and Sharp-shinned hawks have also made appearances at the first dozen of the more than 100 hawkwatches that will eventually be spotting birds.

Perhaps the most unusual sightings already this fledgling hawk season are reports of a few northern goshawk, normally one of the latest migrants, best seen on a frigid day in November. Perhaps these early appearances signal a good breeding year for these uncommon and northern birds or perhaps just a lack of food in their home ranges. It’s too soon to answer that question, but the question itself is intriguing enough for these early days of the season.

This change in weather signals that it’s time for me to dust off my binos and ready the pack for another season on a hawkwatching hill. I don’t care which one—as long as the wind is from the northwest, I’ll be happy.

Old roots, new day

I love the old roots that hold this tree into the ground. The gnarls and twists look as strong as the earth itself. The roots coil and wrap around rocks both seen and unseen like a Gordian knot. Solid is the word that comes to mind.

Last evening made me wish I could be as solidly planted. Tornados pushed through the area, fortunately doing limited damage and no injury where they did land and none at all at the cabin. One tornado passed nearly overhead at my office, never touching down or even coming close to touching down. I saw the second tornado heading away from me as I was driving home, a huge, tightly twisted thundercloud with a large black and pink area hanging down.

Today we are warned it may happen again. Hopefully not. But whatever the storms bring today, behind them, finally, comes some cooler and less humid weather. Once the soup clears out, the worst of summer may well go with it. After all, Labor Day approaches.

Waiting for the summer season to break and bring the first, cool breezes of fall means making it through the day. That shouldn’t be too hard, even if I’m not as solid as the roots that hold this tree to the ground.

You lookin' at me?

I’m starting to think that frogs will take over the world—at least the part of it that includes Roundtop. Here’s what it’s like here now: hot, humid, hazy, with 2"inches of rain in a thunderstorm that begins between 5-5:15 p.m. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Or is that ribbet, ribbet, ribbet? The two words are nearly the same, n’est-ce pas? And I’m starting to think the local frogs all have attitude. They know they are soon going to be taking over the world. That’s why I’m getting the slimy eyeball from this one.

Usually frogs are shy creatures, disappearing into the water before you know where they are sitting, refusing to return to their perch for an hour after they make that leap into the pond. Not this fellow. He leaped and then immediately returned, eyeing me with disdain and willing me to move away so he could hop out of the water and return to his fishing spot.

If this weather keeps up, it won’t be long before that frog won’t even bother to leap into the water. Frogs will be the kings of the forest.

Seriously, the 2" of rain every evening, all falling within 15-20 minutes is getting old. And the forecast doesn’t show an early end to it. I’d need a wet suit stay dry in my back forest right now. My weed whacker took one look at it and fainted. I’ve completely given up trying to keep it walkable out there this year. Maybe I’ll just wait for the first killing frost to clear it out. That sure would be easier.

Red

Here and there, in just a spot or two, I am beginning to see signs that fall is approaching. Somehow the plants just know. It can’t be that the weather is slightly cooler, because normal summer weather has finally reached this mountain. The dreaded three H’s—hazy, hot and humid—hold sway again and have for at least two weeks now.

It can’t be dry weather, because it hasn’t been dry here. Almost tropical downpours drench the mountain nearly every other day.

It could be that the plants are responding to the ever-shortening hours of daylight. If so, the Virginia creeper is the plant most sensitive to that change, as it is always the first in my woods to show color.

Or perhaps the plants just know. Perhaps their lifespan is geared to a certain number of days or months, and weather or daylight plays little part in impacting that. Whatever the answer, the change has begun. Today, it’s only a leaf or two. Next week it will be a few more. The week after that it will likely be a different species of plant. Today, in the midst of the hottest days of the season, the first glimpse of fall brightens the forest.

A "new" bird for the mountain

After living in my cabin on Roundtop for as many years as I have, the pace of discovering new species of birds has long since slowed. So over the years I have found new ways to document "old" birds. A common bird seen in a new month, for example, is worthy of note.

Today’s bird, a double-crested cormorant, falls into my "new" category. Actually, it falls into my "new" category twice over. The photo itself is rather poor, but it clearly shows the bird sitting on Roundtop’s newest and largest pond.

So what’s new? Well, this is the first time I’ve seen cormorant sitting on a Roundtop pond. It’s only been in the last two years that I’ve even found cormorants flying over the mountain. I have always added flyover birds to my personal list of "birds seen on Roundtop." That’s how I’ve gotten common loons on my Roundtop list, as well as several other species. But this marks the first time I’ve seen one stop.

The second "new" category for this bird isn’t quite as exciting. It simply marks the first time I’ve seen the species in August. My other sightings were always in April and September. This bird is a bit of an oddity in another respect, too. My other sightings were all of the birds in a small flock. This one was apparently traveling on by itself. This bird might be a younger bird. In an even blurrier enlargement of this photo the bird seems pale on the throat, though I couldn't see its belly to be certain. Even if not, the pretty crests the bird shows in its breeding plumage are clearly gone. Fall is on its way.

Relaxing in the woods

Whew! I’m glad that’s over.

"That" is the annual Christian music very-hard-rock Purple Door festival that happens each August at Roundtop. Hours of listening to young people screaming into microphones is not my idea of a relaxing weekend. And I do mean screaming. Even though the cabin was a couple of hundred yards away from the nearest stage, the music was so loud on Friday night that I had to watch TV with the closed-captioning on.

Fortunately, Sunday was a better day. I stuck my nose out of the burrow of the cabin where I’d been hiding and came out for a walk. Summer has finally arrived at Roundtop, long overdue as it is, since Labor Day is fast approaching.

Perhaps I took my walk at just the right the right time of the morning to see a lot of activity, or perhaps the animals, like me, were just coming out of cover after the events of the weekend. For whatever reason, I saw and found some interesting things, certainly enough to blog about for most of the rest of the week.

So what did I see? The first signs of fall color in the Virginia creeper and a first non-flyover sighting of a double-crested cormorant, a box turtle and an assortment of frogs, to name a few. An hour’s walk in the woods made the music festival feel already long gone. Thank heaven for that.

Orange pinwheels

Ferns aren’t the only plant that are happy on Roundtop this summer. With all the rain (more last night, more later today), the mushrooms and fungus are doing extra well, too. Today’s photo is of the cutely named orange pinwheel mushroom.

Pinwheels come is several colors, including white, pink and rusty. All are tiny members of the marasimus family. I haven’t been able to find much information about them. Edibility is listed in several places as "unknown," which leads me to translate this into not yet being able to find anyone who is brave enough to try one. I don’t blame people for that, given how poisonous so many mushrooms are.

They seem to range between Canada and the Carolinas, but information about how common they are within that range is lacking. They appear from July through October and are considered to play a vital role in breaking down the litter layer, especially in the oak-hickory woods of eastern North America, which of course fits Roundtop perfectly. This plant continues its work even during hot and dry years, so perhaps that explains why it is suddenly so numerous in a season that has been cooler and wetter than typical. One expert helpfully reported 60+ species in the family and to "not expect to identify the species."

Another interesting note is that during dry seasons, the mushrooms simply shrivel up and wait. Apparently, if you pick one then and plop it into water, it will soon revive and be ready to go to work on that leaf litter again pretty soon.

For me, finding out about the mushroom is fun but kind of non-essential. I just appreciate occasionally seeing something that isn’t green in the middle of the summer forest.

A walk in the ferny woods

Perhaps it’s the weather, but I’ve been in a "fern-y" phase this summer. I’ve always enjoyed ferns, but this year I have grown more interested in them. I’m surprised by the poor quality of the fern identification guides I’ve encountered, though all are obviously written by people who know much more about ferns than I do. One guide has great information but poor illustrations, which makes IDing the little emerald gems difficult. Another writes endlessly about fern spores and has only drawings of ferns, which is no help at all.

I have this niggling idea that a really good fern guide should be written for everyday enthusiasts like me and not just for the fern geeks of academia. Good photos, good range maps, interesting information—is that really too much to ask? But as usual, I digress.

What I wanted to show you this morning is one stretch of the woods on Roundtop where I’ve been finding some of the ferns. This photo was taken in an area slightly more open than average. You can see how lush and green the forest is right now. The lushness is not typical for mid-August. To my eye, this photo looks more like one I’d expect to learn was taken in mid-June.

The little two-track road leads down to the bottom of the mountain, though I took this shot about midway down, still some distance from the valley floor with its rocky stream and moist loam. Here, the forest is typically more sandy or at least better drained than down below, though I'm not sure you'd guess that from this appearance. Usually, this section of forest looks much drier in mid-August than it does today.

This summer has been especially rainy and cooler than average, which has likely made the ferns pretty happy and probably also accounts for their current abundance. It hasn’t hurt my feelings, either.

A new discovery

Sometimes a little investigation into the natural world leads to unsuspected and interesting discoveries. Today’s photo is of a long beech fern. This fern is apparently common in Canada and the northern U.S. In the east it’s found down to West Virginia and Maryland, apparently skips over Virginia and Kentucky and then magically reappears in Tennessee and North Carolina. I found this pretty little fern on Sunday when I was down in the woods.

Despite owning several fern identification guides, putting a name to this fern proved more difficult than I expected. To me, the fronds are pretty distinctive and somewhat untypical of the general run of ferns. The fronds are broader than most of the ferns I see, the overall color a paler green, and when I looked closely, I noticed that the last pair of fronds closest to the base were always pointing down at a diagonal. So on the surface it looked as though the ID should be easy.

Partly, my difficulty came from the fern guides themselves. One has photographs but the photos aren’t always great and are even a bit blurry in the close-ups. Another has drawings, and frankly, they all look alike to me. In any event, I eventually figured it out and that’s when the discovery happened.

Yesterday, I posted the photo of the pretty little maidenhair fern that I also found on my walk in the woods. The beech-fern is within a few feet of that fern, and one of the field guides said the beech-fern is often associated with maidenhair ferns. Suddenly, the whole fern picture got a little clearer. First off, that little note helped to confirm the beech-fern identification, and in some ways it also helped clear up the maidenhair fern story. On the surface, the spot where I found the maidenhair seemed an uncharacteristic location for it. But now, learning that it is often found with the beech-fern, which I found in the same spot, the location for the maidenhair must be less uncharacteristic than I first assumed.

All in all, finding these two ferns together forms a tidy little package, all tied up with a bow.

Surprise in the woods

Regular readers of Roundtop Ruminations know that I’ve spent my most of my Thursdays since the start of the summer taking groups of kids from an adventure camp into the woods to show them interesting things in the forest. It wasn’t just the kids that found interesting things, I found some things I didn’t know were here either.

Today’s photo is one of them. It’s a northern maidenhair fern, also called five-finger fern, the first I’ve ever seen in these woods in nearly 20 years of living here. I dutifully showed it to each group of kids and told them it was the first one I’d ever found here. They were not completely impressed. To these suburban kids, finding, picking and eating one tiny black raspberry was far, far more exciting than some ratty old fern.

Of course, at the beginning of the summer, this "ratty old fern" didn’t look quite as ratty as it does today. While I was hiking with the kids, I didn’t take my camera, so it was only this past weekend, now that camp is over, that I got to make a trip into the woods on my own, with camera. Part of the reason I was so surprised to find the fern here on my first trip into the woods with the kids is that where I found the fern on Roundtop is pretty far from the fern’s optimal habitat.

Maidenhair ferns favor rocky ravines, preferably ones with at least a seasonal stream running down the ravine. Moss-covered banks, stream, splashing water, rocks, that kind of thing. This particular fern is mere inches from the edge of a woods road, still well up on the mountain, with no ravine or stream in sight. I feel a little sorry for the plant. The only true part of this plant’s favored habitat that matches where it sits on Roundtop is that the plant likes limestone and limestone soil and rich deciduous woods. We’ve got that part here.

The plant has been reported in every county of Pennsylvania, so it’s not uncommon in and of itself. I have looked for it when I fern-gaze down along the banks of Beaver Creek that flows between Roundtop and Nell’s Hill. That area is fern heaven and far more closely fits the maidenhair’s preferred habitat. Funny, that I’ve never found one down there, but here one is up on the side of the mountain.

Between this plant’s chosen site and the marginal habitat on which it sits, I’m more than a little surprised it has survived the summer so far. I was actually tempted to take some water along on Sunday and see that it got a nice watering, but a little rain on Saturday night doused the forest enough that I didn’t.

For me, finding a maidenhair fern here on Roundtop was a big thrill, if not for the kids. It really beats those ratty old black raspberries by far.

Happy Friday

Happy Friday! After two days of high humidity and heat, this clear and almost cool morning feels wonderful. Dog and Baby Dog both misbehaved, often a sign of improved weather. They are simply too wound up to listen, instead finding all kinds of smells suddenly far more interesting than paying attention to me.

This morning Dog was certain that a deer had only instants before walked on This Very Spot, and if I only allowed it, he could catch up and give chase. Baby Dog plugged her nose into the earth and inhaled deeply as though she was trying to get high from the scent. The deer, far up on one of Roundtop’s slopes, raised its head from grazing only briefly before returning to its breakfast.

Both of them completely missed the fox trotting across the lane perhaps 50 yards ahead.

My photo this happy Friday was taken at an orchard near Roundtop. The apples on those trees will soon be ready to pick.

Respite

This morning the air has cleared and cooled. Last evening I could almost feel the humidity draining away. Now I even feel the tickle of a breeze too slight to rustle the leaves. The sky is overcast, with light rain periodically sprinkling small patches of ground for a few seconds. The cloudiness makes the morning even darker than it would otherwise be, a preview of mornings in the weeks to come.

I want to try and remember how this morning feels and hold it within. For today and the day after, this is how my weather will be. But then, the heat wave will start. The days ahead will be in the mid-90’s, with humidity. Maybe if I can hold onto these two days, somehow, those ahead won’t feel so oppressive.

This little respite is much welcomed, whatever my ability or lack of that will bring to the hot days just around the corner. Even if I can’t visualize myself into cool weather, I can enjoy this momentary break from the hot days behind me and the hot days ahead. I hope that will be enough to help me reach the next respite.

Night and dawn

The forest was dark when Dog and I began our morning walk today. The night sky was already starting to pale, but the trees still held the darkness close under the canopy of leaves. Today, the first sound I heard was not the sweet summer call of the pewee, the forest’s earliest riser. It was the hoot of a great horned owl, the night hunter.

The owl was a short distance up the mountain from us, its hoots loud enough to resonate. What better sign could there be that the days are already shortening? Instead of the morning bird calls I’ve been accustomed to for the past several months, today the night caller was still reigning the woods.

Dog and I hadn’t gotten far before the pewee began to sing, and for a few minutes I heard both the last call of night’s creature and the first call of morning’s. The owl would hoot, and it seemed the pewee answered, the two calling back and forth with perfect timing. For a few minutes the two shared the forest, in that hazy time when both night and dawn appear to be the same. And then it was truly dawn, and the owl retreated, while the pewee continued its song, this time a solo.

Woodpile, abandoned

It’s a scorcher today, so the woodpile at the end of this lane won’t be needed for a while. This morning the local birds seemed extra active, perhaps because they are expecting not to do much later today. The hummingbird, eastern towhee, black-capped chickadee and the rooster-crowing mockingbird were all out and busy this morning. The mockingbird is especially funny. He’s got the cock-a-doodle part down, but he forgets all the doos.

The humidity is worse than the heat, of course, especially since everything is still damp from all the rain of the last week. Nothing is able to dry out as more rain has come every other day. My sneakers got soaked on Saturday morning and I still can’t wear them. Soon, even my mold will have mold. I can feel the dampness even inside the cabin, and it’s pretty unpleasant.

The forest is about as lush as it ever gets and certainly as lush as I’ve ever seen it in early August. Usually by this time of the year, rain is something I may see once a week and between that and the heat, some plants are usually already looking brown-ish. Not this year.

Some days I feel that I am living in a jungle. I don’t know why we don’t call these eastern forests jungles. I’ve been in several jungles, and believe me, none of them have anything over on the forest around Roundtop right now. Machetes would be needed in both cases if you strayed off the trail.

This is the kind of weather where no project seems so urgent that it can’t wait until tomorrow, or maybe the next day. I think I’ll go have another cup of coffee. I wouldn’t want to rush into anything.

Honey bees are buzzing at Roundtop

I know I said I wouldn’t post any more photos of non-native plants, so please try to ignore the invasive black knapweed and focus instead on the honey bee on one of its purple flowers. By this time, anyone who has been paying attention has likely heard about colony collapse disorder that’s been killing bees around the world, especially in North America and Europe.

So far, here at Roundtop, my impression is that honey bees are in good supply. Truthfully, I never paid too much attention to the number of bees until I started hearing about colonies collapsing, but I believe I have a general sense of them—at least enough to notice if suddenly I didn’t have many.

Instead, I seem to have a normal or perhaps even a slightly higher than normal number of them this summer. In the past Pennsylvania has experienced severe losses of bees for non-colony collapse disorder reasons. For example, during the winter of 2000-2001, nearly 50% of the bees disappeared, though natural winter losses are typically in the 15-25% range, according to Penn State University. The Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group is based at PSU.

CCD, as it’s come to be abbreviated, is still incompletely understood, with researchers now believing that many causes contribute. Focus is on everything from mites, a virus, fungus, cell phones, nicotine pesticides and bacteria that might somehow all work together to suppress the bee’s immune system.

Researchers also indicate that propagation of the CCD is much like a contagious disease in how it spreads. Healthy bees become contaminated with CCD when they enter a diseased colony’s hive to rob its provisions for their own use. Even climate change is implicated in CCD, with suggestions that it has made bee hives more vulnerable. As plants are now blooming at different times of the year, nectar flows are also much earlier and this may contribute to increased bee stress. At this point, climate change is not considered to be a direct cause of CCD.

The most recent information I’ve found is located here, a preliminary report published in mid-May. Total colony losses in the U.S. for ’08-09 are just under 29% of managed bee colonies, a reduction over the two previous years. In those years, bee colony loss was at nearly 36% and 32%. While this sounds like an improvement, researchers note that the rate of loss is unsustainable. Still, colonies lost from CCD symptoms last year was put at 15%, compared with 60% during the previous winter.

Bees can roam pretty long distances—several miles from the hive. As Roundtop is about a mile from one edge of an apple orchard, many of the bees I see are likely from their hives, though I have also seen several wild (or perhaps escaped) hives down in the woods this year. In any event, seeing bees is now something I pay more attention to than I used to, and I’m glad that there seems to be plenty around to look at.

Summer visitor

Great Blue Herons are a regular visitor to Roundtop’s ponds. I can’t call them common visitors, though sometimes that is true, and it can also be true in certain months. Sometimes I think one adds Roundtop to its regular route and shows up daily for a few months. Sometimes that doesn’t happen, and I don’t see them for several months.

This year I’ve only seen them a time or two. This one showed up for the first time last evening, so it’s too soon to know if this one will become a regular visitor or just a one-time occurrence. These birds look especially big and clunky when they are standing out on dry land, which doesn’t happen all that often. Usually they are up to their knees in water, skulking around cattails or other tall reeds. They look clunky enough even then, but that’s nothing compared to how they look out of the water.

The birds are at least 3 feet tall, often 4 feet tall, and have a 5-6ft. wingspan. Despite their huge size, like most birds they don’t weigh much—under 5 lbs. They are pretty wary birds, and I’ve found it rare to get very close to them. Typically, they give a loud croak and fly off at the first sign of something near them. I was in the car when I took this photo, which helped a bit, though this bird didn’t hang around very long even so. Even a brief visit adds a bit of drama to the day. Something this large brings its own drama even if it doesn't do much.

Drama queens on the loose

This morning, a little mini-crow drama took place in front of the cabin. Crows are, among many other things, drama queens. Like my Baby Dog, their self-appointed task is to announce to the world anything that seems to them to be Out of Place or Wrong. In and of itself, this isn’t a bad thing, but the way they carry out this task leaves something to be desired, at least by human standards.

The problem is that minor infractions of the forest are capital offenses in their eyes. In human terms, crows would sentence a trespasser or a jay-walker to death. They over-react. And so, they become a bit like the boy who cried wolf. After a while, they are simply ignored, which I imagine only heightens their outrage.

So this morning, when I heard one of the local crows fussing, I paid no attention. In a bit, crow #1 was joined by crow #2 and then crow #3. Eventually, I don’t know how many crows showed up, but there was no shortage. By now I suspected that juvenile Red-tailed Hawk, who is a favorite target, or perhaps one of the Great Horned Owls was nearby. So I went to investigate. I didn’t see anything. The crows continued to fuss and scold.

And then I saw him. The neighbor’s cat, an old, fat and neutered male that I believe is at least slightly deaf, was stretched out and asleep underneath some undergrowth, apparently having missed his owner’s evening call to return inside. The crows were outraged. The cat was asleep (at first I thought it was dead) and unaware of the excitement it was causing. Eventually the cat heard me approach and woke up, blinking and stretching. The crows followed him all the way home. The cat ignored them.

This cat hasn’t hunted in years, if at all. The crows didn’t care about that. As far as they were concerned the cat was as dangerous as a hunting and healthy bobcat. I could hear them following the cat as it headed back up the hill to its house and breakfast.

Jungle walk

Rain, thunderstorms, heat and humidity hold Roundtop in its grasp this week. Rain is a daily event, though it certainly isn’t needed anymore. Storms pass somewhere nearby daily. I hear thunder every night but haven’t yet gotten a storm directly overhead.

The weather has cramped my outdoor activities a bit. I don’t want to be in the middle of a project or on a long walk only to find myself in the middle of a thunderstorm with no escape to shelter quickly available. So I end up not getting as much done as I’d like or walking as far as usual.

Inside, I’ve been forced to pull the fan out of storage. I haven’t yet turned it on, though I expect I’ll have to do that this evening. The forest is like a jungle, and sticky mud makes walking in many areas less than enjoyable.

I’m starting to think we might make rain forest status here this year, though as thick as the forest looks right now, I’m not sure that would make any real difference. Unless a few toucans or monkeys show up.

Unexpected

Perception is a funny thing. This morning I came across this purple bow, sitting amongst some vines and thought how pretty and unexpected it looked. I wondered how it got there and where it came from. It was just a little fun surprise along the edge of the woods.

And then it occurred to me that if the bow had been, say, a beer bottle instead, my reaction to it would have been much different. I would likely have grumbled angrily about how rude and inconsiderate some people can be, about how they had no respect for the woods. That imaginary beer bottle would have set my entire day off on the wrong foot.

And yet, both the bow and a beer bottle are very much out of place along the woods edge. But somehow, the bow seems like less of an intrusion, less an act of mindless littering. But now, thinking about it, I’m not so sure that’s really the case.

Oh, I could argue that a bow will blow away or decompose while a beer bottle is "forever," but the reality is, there’s not that much difference between them, is there? Neither belongs here in this spot. The biggest difference is that one is prettier than the other. And what does that say about me that something pretty seems less rude or less out of place than something that’s not so pretty. I’m going to have to think on that one for a while.

Lots and lots of rain

Thursday was quite the day here at Roundtop. I spent most of the day leading groups of kids down through the woods, where they caught frogs, avoided a nest of wild bees, nibbled wild berries and looked at various ferns and mushrooms and whatever else I could find that I thought might interest them. The day was overcast, threatening storms through most of it. The humidity was high, and the day felt pretty tropical. I was relieved it wasn’t 90 degrees the way it was last Thursday, though 80 degrees and humid feels hot enough.

On the way back to camp on the last hike of the day, I heard the sound of very distant thunder. The kids and I were about halfway back to camp. I kept an ear out for it. I noticed that it didn’t seem to get much closer, though I did hurry the kids along a bit just in case. We made it back without incident, and I got back to the cabin and took a quick shower. The sky was darkening by the minute, and the storm was edging closer.

At this point, I already knew that the storm was moving slowly—always a bad sign. When a storm approaches slowly, it means when it finally reaches me, it also takes a long time for it to move away. As humid as the day was, I knew this would likely translate into a lot of rain.

And boy, did I get a lot. Nearly 4 inches of rain fell in an hour. I can’t remember the last time it rained that hard for that length of time. Usually downpours that heavy are brief, lasting just a few minutes. Not this time. The official total was 3.76 inches. I can tell you that my 4" rain gauge overflowed, though I hadn’t dumped it from the day before when I had perhaps an inch of rain. And the storm wasn’t just over my cabin.

Flash floods were reported in many locations, necessitating many rescues from both cars and homes. Roads were closed. Roads were washed away. I was holed up in the cabin, and didn’t see the reality (except on TV) until this morning. My morning commute was a weaving dodge around sawhorses marking areas where the road was washed away—in some cases feet deep. Brown mud covered the macadam wherever water had raced across low areas. It was a mess. Whew! I just hope that’s done for a while. A storm like that every once in a very long while is more than enough.

Brown-eyed susans (...and dogs and deer)

Brown-eyed susans have started their annual show this week here on Roundtop. I think of them as perhaps the showiest of the midsummer wildflowers. In the almost never-ending expanse of green around me, their bright golden shade is a welcome contrast.

Last evening, thunderstorms danced all around me but didn’t appear overhead. This morning, the sky is overcast, even a bit foggy. That makes me notice all the more how the sunrise grows ever later, minute by daily minute. I almost turned on my outside porch light this morning until I stopped myself and simply refused to go there yet. This morning’s gloom also meant that the great horned owls were still calling when Dog and I first headed out on our morning walk.

The moist air accentuates smells, captures the dogs’ brains and makes them stupid. Like most dogs, Dog and Baby Dog can only do one thing at a time, whatever thing most captures their attention at that second. Dog put his nose to the ground and tried to gallop off, entranced by the scent of deer. Judging by the tracks I see almost daily, the deer are here every night, but that moist air makes their scent stronger and holds it in that spot more than is typical. Baby Dog has a different approach. She points her nose into the ground and would hold it in that same spot for 45 minutes if I didn’t drag her away.

You’d think both of them would treat deer smells as old hat by now, considering that they’re in the driveway as often as not.

A little evening drama

Mid-summer on the mountain is usually a quiet time, but quiet doesn’t mean absolutely nothing happens. Last evening, I heard an odd bird call, a loud one. The loudness of the call told me the bird in question was large, though I’d never heard this particular sound before. By large, I knew that meant this bird was either a hawk or an owl. The weirdness of the call told me the bird was almost certainly a juvenile. I suspected the bird was being harassed or scolded by smaller birds.

Juvenile birds make weird noises that often bear little resemblance to how they sound when they are adults. I’ve heard a Red-tailed Hawk with an adult voice trying to make juvenile food calls near a parent bird—and boy, does that sound ridiculous. I’ve heard owls make all kinds noises they aren’t supposed to. Being able to identify a species by its "normal" call doesn’t mean you’ll know every call that bird can make.

At one point I saw the silhouette of this bird as it moved from where it was to a spot just behind the cabin. The silhouette confirmed the size of the bird but it was too quick and too shielded by leaves to tell me much more than that.

So I went out onto my back deck, which is raised 6-7 feet off the ground and gives me a better view into the forest. After much searching I saw a bit of motion and then I saw it—a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. The bird was now sitting on an upper limb of an oak tree, settling its ruffled feathers. My girls, the chickens, were eyeing it suspiciously, but the hawk didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them. It preened a bit and rearranged its feathers with some emphasis, all confirming that it was likely being harassed and chased from some smaller bird’s territory. It had that look of being put out.

It sat there for a while. I watched it as the darkness deepened. The chickens went back to scratching on the ground. The forest was already dark but light still remained in the western sky by the time the bird lifted its wings and flew deeper into the forest again.

A mid-summer afternoon

I’m almost afraid to even mention the weather this weekend. I’m more superstitious than I’d admit to, I guess. I have this feeling that no sooner will I mention that it is not too hot here that the solar flood gates will open with a vengeance and the temperature will rise into the mid-90’s and turn humid.

It’s a (very) rare summer in southern Pennsylvania when summer hiking is pleasant. But this year the weather has routinely been nice enough that I can hike in the woods in mid-afternoon and still enjoy the experience.

So yesterday Dog and I headed into the woods, on a trail I haven’t walked for a bit. Many of my hikes this summer have been to examine the trail that I take with the camp kids on Thursdays, so I can know what I am likely to see and to identify interesting plants that I don’t already know. But this week, Dog and I took another trail down into the valley.

It was a pleasant afternoon. The woods are a bit dry, though not dangerously so. Dog enjoys these walks enormously, sniffing under as many logs as he can. We walk down along a grassy two-track road. The trail isn’t much used, if at all. The grass is nearing knee-high. The breeze kept various biting insects at bay. Our walk was mostly shaded, the leafy canopy too thick to allow in much sunlight.

Midsummer, even on an afternoon as pleasant as this one, is not the time when the forest is at its most active, so our walk was a nearly silent one. A few wood thrush sang their fluted call, a towhee questioned our presence, and a single chipmunk darted across the trail as fast as if his tail was on fire. But mostly, the walk was quiet and peaceful, lacking in drama of any kind. That’s what I liked about it. Forays into the woods don’t need drama to be interesting to me. The lack of drama is its own reward, a respite from the bustle of daily life. That alone makes it worthwhile.

Heat and humidity--just my luck

Thursday is my day out in the woods with kids, trying to get them to take an interest in the outdoors. I walk them along an old woods road and we look for stuff. Midsummer is not an exciting time for this to the kids. They like big and splashy, lots of drama. A hot and humid midsummer day is not an a great prescription for big and splashy. Still, we had some fun.

I take several groups of kids 8-15 down the mountain and over to a woodland pond. We found the same poor toad three times. Everyone got to hold it. After three trips the toad was in hiding and nowhere to be found. I don't blame the poor thing. We located some frogs and caught a few of them. We saw some chipmunks and those excited far more excitement than I would have expected a chipmunk to excite.

I tried to interest them in ferns and fungus and hickory nuts and things like that. Sometimes it worked. The younger kids are easily amused. The older kids are a tougher audience, at least in part because they are more interested in each other than in anything. The girls giggle over nothing; the boys are in their smart-aleck phase.

I enjoy the time with the kids, though I suspect my impact is pretty limited. For some of these kids, many of whom have never gone on a hike in the woods, a week spent outside doing fun things is a first. They are learning to fish, kayak, canoe, rappel, the basics of "wilderness survival" and the like.

For me, it’s a long day, especially since I am up and down the mountain three times during the day. The total distance is only 6-7 miles, but it’s spread over seven hours of slow walking, which I find more tiring than moving at a normal pace. And, of course, somehow, the hike managed to hit on the first day of the year when it was over 90 degrees and humid. No more of those days are even in the forecast. I'm just "lucky" that way.

Today’s photo is not from my hike yesterday; it was taken the day before at Roundtop, near the bottom of one of the ski slopes, when the humidity was still low.

Blue bird, blue sky

A brilliantly blue sky might be the only thing bluer than an Eastern bluebird. Here on Roundtop, bluebirds may be the most common species found year-round. Chipping sparrows and American robins are more common during summer, but they don’t spend the full year here. Chickadees and tufted titmice are pretty common, too, though they are spread out all over the place, so actual numbers for them are difficult to determine.

Bluebirds are both numerous and easy to quantify. They are easily visible as they ply the grassy ski slopes of summer. It’s not uncommon for me to count 20 of them in a single evening just along the mountain’s western slopes. No nesting boxes are found here. The dead or hollow branches these birds like are also numerous, as evidenced by the one in the background of today’s photo. It’s just as well no one has placed nest boxes for them here at Roundtop. There’s already plenty of them, and more might just result in over-crowding.

In winter, when the slopes are covered with snow, the birds still remain here, though they can be harder to find then. Often, they join up with other species, sometimes with the few over-wintering robins, to forage in winter flocks. They are quick to find any open water or wet spot, and I may see a dozen or more around the tiniest. I routinely put out fruit for them in winter, but truthfully I’ve never had one show up at my feeders. I think the cabin sits too deep in the woods for them.

Near the cabin, but at the bottom of the lane, I often see them in early morning heading out of their roosting tree, where they all seem to sleep. The tree is about 100 yards from the ski slopes, along the power line. Usually, I hear them before I see them. They don’t seem to emerge all at once, though they usually leave within a few minutes of each other. Then they head back to the slopes again, commuting, as it were, back to the grass and then returning each night to their sleeping tree.

Glorious

This summer the weather here has been amazing. If all summers were like this, I’d like them a whole lot better. So far not one day has reached 90, let alone topped that figure. Best of all, the humidity remains low, with only a few forays into that higher, more uncomfortable realm.

The nights dip into the upper 50’s by morning, and I’ve needed that fleece throw by 2 a.m. on most nights. I’m spoiled, I know, and I keep telling myself not to get used to it because August or 2010 will certainly not be like this.

And in case you haven’t yet heard, the El Nino effect is getting underway again, which is likely to affect the northeast U.S. this year or next. In my area, El Nino tends to make the winters warmer and wetter than average, a bad combination for skiers and winter sports enthusiasts like me.

Still, that’s in the future, maybe, and I won’t let that diminish my enjoyment of the weather today. Glories like this can’t be expected to last forever.

Quiet in the summer woods

Roundtop’s woods were quiet this weekend. I didn’t see any life-and-death dramas, find any rare birds or see anything unusual. That means it’s mid-summer, that nearly-static time of the year where nothing much happens.

The black raspberries are over, a few leaves on the poison ivy are already turning red, the great-horned owl still calls from deep in the forest. The promised storms brought a few sprinkles of rain but no major downpours. The sound of thunder slid past to the north, the storm never reaching the cabin. Quiet on the mountain seems to be the rule of the day. Or perhaps the week.

I tell myself to enjoy the lull, to appreciate the quiet, but I’m finding it hard to do. I don’t think I’m geared for quiet. I have trouble getting past the idea that now is simply boring. I know the quiet won’t last, and I also know that at some point I will long for quiet but for some reason that doesn’t help me now.

The forest itself doesn’t mind the quiet. The oaks don’t long for wind or storms or change. The forest residents take the quiet moments as they come. Perhaps, in some future year, I too will learn this skill, this ability to accept the day for what it is. It’s a lesson I am still working on.

Friday morning

Friday’s flower is a native species—one with many names. I think this is Philadelphia fleabane, also known as Philadelphia daisy and sometimes also daisy fleabane. All are from the aster family, and many species are similar enough that differentiating among then is challenging. Just when I think I’ve got it, another similar species makes me wonder. This patch was particularly thick with flowers yesterday afternoon, basking in the warm sunshine.

The individual flowers are about half an inch across or perhaps a bit larger, and the plants are 2-3 feet tall. Yesterday afternoon the patch was alive with honey bees, a welcome sight. Before colony collapse disorder was in the news, I can’t say that I paid much attention to the number of bees around, so I can’t be sure what a ‘normal’ number of bees should be. That said, my impression is that I have a decent number of bees around this year, so I think at least the very local population of them is doing okay.

Here on Roundtop, the forest is starting to look a bit dry. It’s been nearly two weeks since any rain has fallen, after weeks of near-daily rains in June. Rain is predicted for tomorrow, so the dryness won’t last much longer. It’s interesting to me how little time it takes for a soaked forest to dry up, but that’s what’s happened. Wouldn’t you think that nearly 10 inches of June rain would keep things moist for longer than two weeks? Guess not.

Not again! (oh, yes)

When will it ever end? I’m starting to think there are few truly native plants around. Today’s photo is of the mullein, a common wild plant with many medicinal uses and cool common names. But, as I seem to discover All The Time, it is not a native plant.

Does that surprise you? It sure as heck surprised me, and I’m getting tired of it. I’m starting to wonder just what this landscape around here might have looked like before all these non-native plants were released. And those non-native plants are so sneaky, too. They are very good at finding a foothold and pretending they have always been here.

Take the mullein for instance. It’s got a whole host of common names that make it sound as though it has always been around—Quaker Rouge, for one. The Pennsylvania Dutch call it Wolla or Wolla Graut (they smoke it). Native Americans used it regularly, usually for congestion, which brings me to one of its most common names—lungwort. Supposedly, one way to use the plant is to take its fresh leaves, pour boiling water over them and then inhale the infusion. I think I’ll give that one a try myself, perhaps tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Of the plant’s many common names, my personal favorite is My Lady’s Flannel. Flannels were an older name for wash cloths and refers to the soft, velvety leaves of the plant.

So I think I’m going to make a mid-year resolution. I hereby resolve that I’m no longer going to post photos of non-native wild plants anymore. Gee, I hope that doesn’t mean I’ll have to give up posting photos. Stay tuned.