September 1 blues

September sunrise with setting moon

Summer is giving me at least one more blast of hazy, hot and humid weather over the next three days.  But in other ways the oncoming season of autumn is ever more evident.  The barn swallows have left the mountain, no longer plying the mosquitos above this little pond.  They left on or about August 27 or 28, as regular as ever. The swallows are the first to go, though I haven’t heard the yellow-billed cuckoo for a while.

I now frequently see red-leafed poison ivy, tall stands of purple thistle and less undergrowth as the annual plants begin to die back.  Mullein is brown and looks burned.  The constellation Orion is high in the morning sky before dawn once again. Even my chickens are producing fewer eggs than in the early days of spring.

Now, if only the temperature would follow suit.  It will, I know, and likely by Friday, but I’m impatient.  After all, it is September.

Going by so quickly

Some days I wish these lazy, hazy days of summer weren’t so crazy.  Too many paths go unwalked, too many stars aren’t stared at and too many birds aren’t looked for.

The season moves, and I’ve already missed so much of it. Even though summer isn’t my favorite of the seasons, some things can only be enjoyed and seen in summer, and so much of it is already gone.  The local soft ice cream stand closes on Labor Day, and I’ve only partaken once.  I managed to get my swimsuit out of winter storage but never got to go swimming.  I have yet to have a cookout or make s’mores. The seat cushions on my outside chairs need replacing, and the stores have already put them away until next summer.

You just know..

You know the summer is turning towards fall when...

...the goldenrod turns golden.  Last evening was the first I found some that had turned color.  I’ve been keeping an eye on it, waiting for the green seeds to turn golden. The arrival of the goldenrod and also of the purple-flowered thistles are a sure sign that late summer is here.  

The change that has the most impact on me, and possibly on my readers, too, is the every-shortening hours of daylight.  It’s dark when I walk the dogs in the morning, and I now have to rush to clean up after the evening meal if I want to walk around the mountain before it gets dark again.  And this is only the beginning of those shorter hours of daylight. I suppose that’s a small price to pay for the next season’s cooler temperatures.  Still, on some ideal earth with a different tilt, I’d order up cooler temperatures AND longer hours of daylight.

Turkeys on parade

Summer has reached the later part of its season here on Roundtop.  The woodland birds have fledged and are out on their own—often with clownish feather-do’s in some weird combination of baby feathers and adult plumage.  Saturday night saw a decent early-season migration.  On Sunday morning I saw a flock of robins, about half of them this year’s young birds.  I also found a few warblers, which is never more than I see here.  Roundtop isn’t a warbler hotspot, by any means.

On Friday evening I found, again, the family of wild turkey I occasionally see.  They were stalking the edge of a cornfield, the young poults already grown since the last time I saw them, which wasn’t very long ago.  There were more of them than I could fit in the frame--another hen and several more poults.
I
 can see a change in the undergrowth of the forest—there’s less of it.  The first of spring annual plants often die back after they flower.  For me, this amounts to being able to see deeper into the forest again, instead of finding a thick curtain of greenery obscuring anything more than 10 feet away.

This summer is shaping up to be less hot than average—it’s still too warm for me.  I’m ready for fall with the first day of 90 degree day.  This year, that came later than it often does and didn’t last as long as usual, too.  At least this summer wasn’t a constant stream of hazy, hot and humid days, but instead was a constant stream of warmer than average days, with no seesawing back and forth between hot and cooler.  It was just constantly in the mid to upper 80s, and the night time temperature didn’t drop as it often does.  As a result the overall effect was a summer about 2.5 degrees hotter than the average of the previous years.  Right now it looks like the 10th hottest August of recorded temperatures in this area.  As I said earlier, I am ready for fall, but I know I’m going to have to wait a while longer.

Pokeweed

Pokeweed

It’s been a hot week on Roundtop Mtn., and I’ve had a busy week with a variety of evening activities, so my times of being out and about in the forest were more limited than usual for me.  As a result, my observations have been more subdued or unsuccessful than usual.

I’ve been looking for nighthawks in the evenings—no luck so far.  I’ve been looking for swallows that are not the ubiquitous barn swallows—ditto, no luck.  Anything that moves is hiding, it seems to me.  Or perhaps, the forest creatures have simply found that ultimate cool spot and aren’t about to leave it and let something else take it away from them.

Pokeweed flowers with green berries in background

About the only thing I have noticed are things that do not move.  Today the thing that is not moving is the pokeweed. I found a huge bush of it, and what I found most interesting that the same bush contained pokeweed berries in a variety of stages—flowering, fully budded but green and fully ripe.  In case you didn’t know, I’m going to remind you that pokeweed is toxic and poisonous to humans.  Birds love it and are unaffected, as are some smaller animals. I’m told the plant becomes more toxic the more mature it becomes, and death can occur by eating only a few raw berries.  Animals often avoid the berries because they are bitter, but farm animals have been poisoned by leaves that end up in their fodder.  Humans can eat the leaves, provided they are boiled several times, with the water discarded after each boiling.  Thanks, but I think I’ll pass on this one.

Anyway, I just enjoy looking at the berries and the birds that come to the bushes for them.

a midsummer's eve

The midsummer forest has its own special look—the bright greens of spring have faded but the dry and brownish shades have yet to appear.  At the moment, the woods are a deep shade of emerald, made brighter by the golden rays of late afternoon.  A few of the annual plants are gone, and the forest floor is a bit more open than it was in May and early June.  When the temperature is comfortable, as it has been this week, the time is a lovely one to walk in the woods.

Each season and mini-season has charms, of course.  Midsummer is not always my favorite, though much of that is because of heat and humidity. When those are not oppressive, the season is delightful and a fun time to explore in the forest.

Last evening was one of those times, and my wandering was accompanied by the sound of wood thrush, still singing, deeper in the forest.  The mosses are already sprouting seed pods, tiny little groups of stalks like miniature fields of wheat, all within a span the size of an open hand.
Back at the cabin I found a lovely and large moth, likely a sphinx moth, that refused to light and let me look at it closely.  It fluttered deeper into the woods and finally away from me, forever to remain a mystery, like so much of the forest, especially on a midsummer eve’s ramble.

You know it's mid-August when...

...It’s time for the Perseid meteor shower! I got up at 4 a.m. this morning and went up to the Roundtop’s north parking lot to watch the Perseids.  Wow!  What a show!  For once it was clear and no moon was up to brighten the sky.  Orion, that familiar winter warrior,  was just above the eastern horizon.  The milky way stretched the length of the sky.

I saw lots of meteors—one almost large enough to call a fireball, several really good “ordinary” meteors and lots of little ones.   In the 45 minutes or so I was there before dawn intervened and ruined the viewing I probably saw 35-40 meteors.  If I’d brought something to lay on I could have seen more of the sky at one time and likely found even more. It was the Perseid show I’d seen in years.

...I have to wear my headlamp in the mornings when I walk the dogs again. The days are growing shorter.

...The thistles are blooming and the American goldfinch are enjoying the riches.  Pokeweed berries look fully formed but are still green—it’s not that late in the season just yet.

Turtle rescue!

Rescuing turtles from the middle of a road is a regular occurrence for me.  Box turtles are the most frequent species in need of being removed from a road.  Occasionally I also find a snapping turtle, which I can usually urge off the road by getting it to snap at something like a stick and leading it, snapping all the way, to the edge of the road.

This weekend I added a third species to my rescue, except that I’m not entire sure what it is. I first thought it was an eastern painted turtle but when I saw the red stripe above the eye, doesn’t that make it a red-eared slider?  Except that the plastron, or bottom, of the shell is yellow like the painted turtle and this turtle was a total sweetie, which is not the reputation for the red-eared slider. But the shell is more domed, like a slider, than is typical for the painted turtle.  So, can I hedge my bets and call this one an interbreed?  (That does occur, so such a thing is not a fancy of my indecision)

This particular turtle was found near Pinchot State Park, which is appropriate in two ways.  The first is that these common turtles are commonly found at Pinchot, so finding one near there was not a surprise, though this one was headed in the opposite direction from the lake.  The second reason is that tomorrow marks the 150th birthday of Gifford Pinchot, a Pennsylvania native and the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service.  He was also one of our state’s governors and a close friend of another ardent conservationist, President Theodore Roosevelt. But getting back to this turtle...

My Sunday morning rescue was large and old. It was likely a female, as they are about an inch larger than the males.  This one was easily 8 inches long, putting it near the upper end of both species’ size.  Its turtle growth rings on its carapace were worn to the point where I couldn’t count them to guess how old it might have been.  This turtle seemed in fine health, despite an old injury that resulted in the loss of at least one of its rear toes.

Said turtle hid from me most of the time and only deigned to show off her pretty red “ear” stripe after I’d released her for a few moments.  I hope this one has many more years ahead of it—whatever her exact species.

Last day of camp--already!

My adventure camp will be over after tomorrow. Where is the summer going?  To me it feels as though I should only be on week 2 or 3, not week 8 of camp.  Already the first of the poison ivy leaves are turning red, and now the famers are baling hay, too.  Before I know it, pumpkins will be for sale at the local farm markets.

Today, I am glad simply that the humidity of midsummer is gone and is not returning on even the longest of the long range forecasts I can find.  To me, this means even if that dreaded weather does return, it can’t settle in and stay for months because the season is too far along for that to happen.  Hazy, hot and humid weather starting in early June is dreadful because I know it may stay that way until the end of August and that’s just too horrible a thing to even bear to contemplate.

These less humid days and cooler nights with more of the same ahead are far more to my liking.  The only downside—and it’s a small one—is that it is now time to wear my headlamp again during my morning walks with my now 10-year-old Baby Dog.  By the time I start a walk with the puppies, the headlamp can be put away for the day.

Summer past its peak?

Could it be?  Is it possible that the worst of summer is already over?  It’s too soon to say so definitively, but the signs are trending positively.

Yesterday was the usual hazy, hot and humid summer day that topped out at 90 degrees.  At dusk, I walked the dogs, though not very far.  Returning to the cabin, I stood and watched a small bat cavort through the trees, gobbling mosquitos overhead in the one opening in the forest canopy created by my cabin.  It was a small bat, though all bats look small when they are at treetop level.  And even the so-called big bats are less than 5” in length and only about a foot from one outstretched wing to the next. That said, my guess as to the species of this bat is the Little Brown Bat, Pennsylvania’s most common bat.  They are just over 3” in length and about 8-10 inches with wings spread.  I like watching bats—anything that feeds on mosquitos so voraciously is okay with me.  And despite the fears of many, I think they are cute little things.

A fierce thunderstorm swooped through in the middle of the night, wakening everyone and keeping everyone awake for a solid hour with brilliant bursts of lightning and sharp cracks of thunder.  Today, the humidity is gone, though it is still hot enough for me, if much more comfortable than yesterday.  Even better, the forecast for the next 10 days shows no more 90 degree temperatures, with more than a few days struggling to reach 80.  Northwest winds tomorrow and Thursday will even bring a small slug of raptor migrants down from the far north.  Fall is beginning to approach, and summer is starting to feel as though it has reached its peak and is now beginning a slow slide to cooler temperatures.  That’s never too soon for me.

Turkey family on parade

It's not a great photo, but when a family of wild turkey is crossing the road in front of me, I have to take what I can get. I never did get a full count of the poults, though there were at least 5-6.  A second adult turkey was also helping to shepherd this crowd across the road, though she (I assume it was an auntie) was too shy for the photo.

Summer fog

Summer is here and with it comes heat, humidity and dense fog in the mornings. I am not a summer person and prefer to move slowly under cover of shade as much as possible.

I am already thinking ahead to fall and watching the poison ivy turn red with some glee. Soon, I think, soon the temperature will be cooler and nights chilly.  But truly, in the meantime, summer seems interminable, and the idea of continued hot weather through sometime next week feels like forever.

A day at camp

Walking down Roundtop to Beaver Creek

I haven’t posted much about my Thursday adventure camp sessions this year, and now that I only have a few more weeks of camp, I guess I’d better not wait. 

Yesterday the weather was outstanding—perfect temperature, not a cloud to be found and low humidity. I think it’s the only day this summer when I could say that.  So the walk down Roundtop Mtn. to Beaver Creek was especially nice.

The kids caught a huge number of crayfish yesterday. This photo was taken sometime during the first group of kids and doesn’t begin to show the magnitude of the day's catch.  They also caught about a dozen minnows and assorted water skippers, which for some reason are always a favorite of a subset of young campers.  Personally, I don’t see the attraction, but I don’t complain about anything outdoorsy that interests them.  

I also found this beetle, which was a bit over 1” long. I think it may be a broad-necked root borer but I’m not a bug person, so if anyone knows for sure, please correct me.  If it is that bug, the forest habitat is certainly right, and I believe it is a female, which is substantially larger than the male.

Orange

Brown-eyes susan

Are you seeing more American goldfinch lately? Goldfinch are on the move, often entire family groups.  Goldfinch breed much later than most other birds, waiting until the milkweed and thistle produce seeds.  It’s often early July until the young birds hatch, but they make up for it by being ready to fly within 9-10 days.  Tthe young birds typically stay with the parent birds for at least several more weeks, and all of them flit around together in search of seeds.   That’s the point where the birds are right now in my area.  I see or hear them every day, usually in groups of three or five, rarely more.

Another sign of the progressing season is that for a few minutes I actually considered wearing my headlamp this morning when I walked the dogs.  The morning was crystal clear, not a cloud to be found, and for the once the humidity was low.  So I can’t blame an overcast sky for the near-darkness in which I found myself.  It was entirely the result of the shortening hours of daylight.  I believe I can make it through this week without my headlamp, but I suspect next week will be a different story.  This morning, I simply slowed my exit from the cabin by a minute or so and waited another minute for my eyes to adjust, and we were on our way.

Hot, hot, hot

Summer’s heat and humidity is making up for lost time.  After a cool and rainy June and early July, the weather is now hotter and more humid than the hottest day of August.  I mind the humidity at least as much as the heat. To me it feels as though I am breathing water and that’s not a good feeling. So I only venture outside when needed or in the early and later part of the day.

I have finished constructing a new chicken pen, and “the girls” spent their first night in it last evening. A few of them were very confused and kept trying to enter the old pen, but eventually they all figured it out.  My broody hen is still firmly plopped atop her eggs.  Not all of the eggs are actually hers, but if she wants to brood eggs laid by her sisters, I have no objection.  It will be another 10-11 days before her incubation period is complete.  I hope I get a few chicks from her, and I hope they aren’t all roosters, though I would be happy with one new rooster. Doodle, my current rooster, is now an elderly gentleman and can’t have more than another winter or maybe two in him.

Pink

Ironweed after rain

My broody hen is so far sticking to her eggs, though she needs to remain diligent for just over two more weeks before any chicks will hatch.  That leaves me just two weekends to get that new chicken run put together if I want her in a secure place to raise chicks, assuming she actually hatches any.

We have already had one scare in this non-secure area where she is determined to nest.  Something came into her space around 10:30 the other night, sending her squawking and away from the nest.  I rushed outside, headlamp in hand, to find her stuck in a corner with her head through a hole in the chain link fence.  She was upset but unhurt and the eggs were undamaged. I saw and heard nothing in the woods. I don’t think her “attacker” was a raccoon, as she and her eggs were not hurt.  I suspect one of the local cats may have just wanted to sleep in the straw (as they do when there are no eggs there).  It’s possible it was something else, but I found no sign of any marauder, just one scared but undamaged hen. Fortunately, she returned to her eggs quickly.  And only two more weeks to go.

White

Queen Anne's lace

Midsummer is especially lush on Roundtop this year, due the near unending rain.  This past weekend was the first in a month where it didn’t rain and that respite, while it will be short-lived, was much appreciated.  The clear weather allowed me to get some outside work done, but I’m afraid I will never catch up at this rate.

Wildflowers are certainly enjoying the wet summer. They are profuse nearly everywhere I look. I hope the local bees are populous enough to properly pollinate them. I do see some bees, if not nearly the numbers I should be seeing.  Colony collapse disorder apparently took an especially harsh toll last winter and this spring, with losses running about 42% of all colonies.  This comes after a year or so when the losses didn’t appear to be getting any worse, and beekeepers were very cautiously optimistic they could learn to deal with it. So much for that hope, I’m afraid.  This year I can probably count the number of bees I’ve seen on two hands.  That’s more than a little scary.

Butterflies, which also perform pollination duties, seem to be around in normal numbers, so that might help.  Butterflies are far less efficient than bees at pollinating, but at least it’s something. The difference is that butterflies have longer legs than bees, which holds them away from pollen. Bees are built for pollinating and can capture pollen pretty much with their entire bodies.  And of course, bees are busy little things, while butterflies flit prettily and slowly from flower to flower.  One thing butterflies can do that bees can’t is see the color red, so they are very effective pollinators of red flowers.  Butterflies prefer larger flowers with flat or broad surfaces so they can more easily land. A few moths, such as the hummingbird moth, also pollinate but how many of those do you see around?

I’ve been talking about wildflowers and how they are affected by a lack of bees, but that’s really only a side issue.  More than 80 different farm crops in the U.S. depend on pollination.  This covers all of the berry crops as well as apples, cherries, plums, avocados and all the almonds.  The list goes on to cover dozens of food crops. I look for bees every day when I’m out in the woods, but so far there’s little joy in reporting the number that I see.

Summer storm

Beaver Creek before the kids arrived

For a few days at least, the nasty, goopy weather that has characterized summer 2015 is gone.  The weather was still goopy during adventure camp down at Beaver Creek yesterday, but the kids all finished their critter-catching sessions and got back up the mountain before the storm hit.

The severe summer storm brought down trees, took out power and littered the yards and roads with various-sized limbs and branches.  A tornado took out an elementary school near Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and though the principal was in the school at the time, she wasn’t hurt.  It’s possibly a mark of how odd this summer is that it took a storm like that to bring about some normal summer weather.  So I will enjoy the weather for a few days before the goop returns.  Perhaps I’ll even have time to put together a new chicken run for the girls, a project hampered by the last three rainy weekends.

I have a broody hen, something of a rarity in Rhode Island Reds, who are notoriously poor mothers.  She is, naturally, brooding where I don’t want her to brood. I tried moving her and the eggs, which didn’t sit well with her at all. She returned to her original spot within an hour, so I gave in and returned the eggs to her.  They were still warm, so I hope all is well there.  If I’m going to have a broody hen, I hope to get some chicks out of it.  And if she’s going to have chicks, then I really need to get that new run built.  Of course, Miss Broody may well decide that motherhood is not for her and give up before the 21-day hatch time is over. I’m also not sure she’s turning her eggs, as she should be, but she sure has plunked herself solidly in that one spot. There’s a long way to go before any hatching might occur.  And even then some hens kill the chicks that hatch, which is not only should I not count the chicks before they hatch, but I’d better not count them afterwards, either.

July, a repeat of June

 

The strange June pattern of a soaking rain every other day or so is continuing into July at Roundtop.  Even when it’s not raining, it’s foggy and overcast, with hardly any sun or even a blue sky.  Looking ahead in the forecast only shows more of the same into mid-month at least.

One thing I have noticed that is not the norm and that appears to be caused by the odd weather is that poison ivy is everywhere.  This nasty plant apparently thrives in the wet weather.  The patches I find are larger than ever before, and I’m seeing the plant in more places than ever, too.  Just one more unhappy result from the atypical weather this summer.

The first batch of spring babies have apparently left the nests.  I say this because the male wood thrush and ovenbirds are singing again after a month or so of silence.  The silence means nesting is going on, and the return to singing means they are likely looking to start a second brood—or at least thinking about it.  For me, the return of the wood thrush song, especially, is welcome.  I love to hear that sweet song fill the forest, though I don’t often see the birds.  Their singing is a lovely summer sound that lasts not long enough for me.  And I am fortunate in that I hear the sound more than most people.  The birds are common here, and I heard them virtually every day they sing.  Even with that, I’d be happy to have the singing be heard constantly until the leaves fall.

Red sky at morning--fail

The morning sky at Roundtop was attempting to be a “red sky at morning” kind of sunrise, but the overcast was too gloomy for that to be very convincing.  June is ending as it began—with cloudy skies and the chance of storms.  I can only hope for July to bring some better weather.

Right now it appears unlikely that I will be able to see the near convergence of Jupiter and Venus tonight.  They are supposed to appear so close as to look like a double star.  For those who may live where the sky will be clear, look to the west just after sunset.  Don’t wait until it is fully dark but look while the sky is still a twilight blue.  The two are only 1/3 of a degree apart, and the view is improved with binoculars or a scope, with both planets in the same field of view.  Perhaps I will try tomorrow night—they two won’t be quite as close then, but they will still be close and I can only hope the sky will be a little clearer.