Hanna is Gone! Fall is Here!

Hurricane Hanna turned Saturday into a very wet and rather windy day here on Roundtop, but arrived and disappeared so quickly it now feels as though she was never here at all. Friday was a lovely day, if warmer than I like. Saturday morning brought Hanna and with it heavy rainfall totaling about 3 inches through late afternoon. The wind picked up in the mid-afternoon but was never severe. The rain stopped suddenly around 5 p.m. and by 9 p.m. the stars were out. Sunday was a picture perfect and cool day. Hanna was already long gone.

So Sunday, I needed to get out and walk around, after being cooped up inside all day on Saturday. I’d like to report that I discovered a new species of something or saw the extremely rare something else, but that’s not the case. Sunday was simply a beautiful and cooler day with perfectly blue skies.

Now that Hanna has passed, it’s probably likely that the turn towards fall will grow ever more pronounced. It’s not likely that I will have any more 90+ degree days—not that this summer brought very many of those. I may not even have many, if any, more 85+ degree days. And it’s entirely possible that days in the 80-85 degree range could also be in short supply. And for at least the next week the weather will be in the 75-80 degree range—typical for this time of year.

With the passing of Hanna, migration should also really begin to pick up this week, and not just for my beloved raptors, either. I am already seeing some of that. Yesterday I heard and briefly saw an olive-sided flycatcher. I didn’t have my binoculars with me, so all I really saw was a tiny flycatcher sitting on the top of a dead snag, some 50 feet up. But I heard that distinctive "quick, three beers" call. Olive-sided flycatchers have a particular propensity for dead snags to perch on, preferably, I think if they are on the top of a tree. For many years a dead snag on North Lookout at Hawk Mountain was a favorite spot for them. I suspect hundreds, if not thousands, of birders got their first looks at this flycatcher, myself included, when one stopped and stayed for a bit on that particular snag.

So now is the time to dust off those binoculars and get out the field guides. Migration season is on its way!

Goldfinch Again

I know I don't usually post photos of the same thing--or in this case the same species of bird--so close together, but this American Goldfinch was just begging for it this morning. And perhaps it's not such an awful thing, as posting another photo of a goldfinch simply illustrates how commonly I'm seeing these thoroughly lovely little birds right now. Of course, I do like to hang out in this little thistle patch they're so fond of. It's not just the goldfinch that like this little 8-10 foot wide patch between the woods and a dirt road. Unfortunately, for me and my photos, though, the goldfinch are proving the be the easiest of the visitors to photograph.

The thistle patch this morning also hosted some tiny butterflies, a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird, a brownish mid-sized bird that I never got close enough to identify, a Northern cardinal and a host of small sparrows that didn't want to come out of the cover for even an instant. And that was just in 5 minutes. As soon as the weather clears--after Hanna blasts through this weekend--I will take a chair and plant myself in this spot in hopes of photographing at least a few of those other visitors.

And speaking of Hanna: I'm due to get some rain from this system. The forecast doesn't sound awful for my area, but forecasts aren't reliably accurate, so who knows what the hurricane will actually bring?

Coastal hurricanes can often produce good birding at inland areas like mine. It is pretty common for terns and gulls of various species that are never seen around here to show up in farm ponds or in fields to escape the path of a hurricane as it rides up the coast. Once I had Caspian Terns on one of the old snowmaking ponds. Actually, Caspian Terns seem to be the most common evacuee I do see, though they usually prefer to evacuate to a nearby river or large lake. So I am hoping to escape the severest of the weather, but I am hoping I just might get an interesting evacuee or two.

More Gold

Yes, it’s a goldenrod. Likely because I am not allergic to this plant, I find them quite pretty. Golden colors seem to follow me everywhere on the mountain right now. Goldfinch, goldenrod, even the withering leaves are at least temporarily golden. The longer shadows of the early September mornings are taking on a golden hue. After the whiter, harsher light of summer, the change is both noticeable and welcome.

It is beginning to feel like fall, or at least it no longer feels like summer to me. It’s odd, too, in a way because today’s temperature and tomorrow’s will be near 90 degrees, rather warm for this time of year, rather warm by the standards of this cool summer. And yet, it simply no longer feels like summer. Perhaps it is the warmer, more golden light. Perhaps it is something else, something I can sense, though it is not something I can pinpoint intellectually and describe precisely what it is.

I have learned and continue to learn to value my senses and the things they tell me. Not always being able to explain what my senses tell me doesn’t diminish the value of their lessons. Some things are so primal that words aren’t necessary. Like the coming of fall. I can smell it. I can feel it. Deep within that primal part of me, I know it.

Morning Gold and Friday Quiz Results (with Confessions)

I found this lovely male American Goldfinch early this morning as I was leaving Roundtop. My first confession of the day is that I didn't notice this lovely bird until I thought I had already snapped my morning photo for this blog post. I was taking a photo of the mother of all thistle plants. It was much taller than I am, as tall as a small tree. When I finished, I turned and discovered Mr. Goldfinch, who was probably wondering what in the heck I was doing in his thistle patch. He stayed long enough for me to take a few photos of him.

Now for my next confession. I thought I knew what the species was of the tree with red berries that I posted for my Friday quiz, but I am no longer sure that’s the case. I even asked a person I know who knows a lot about trees, and I ended up with yet another answer. Of course, all the people I asked saw the photo and not the tree itself, so that may be part of the problem with the numerous identifications.

Here’s the rundown of possible species. I though it was a black cherry tree (also known as wild cherry). I confess, however, that I didn’t pay much attention to the tree when I took the photo, as I was actually photographing something else and suddenly saw the berries over my shoulder, so I quickly grabbed the shot and moved on. I did think I could relocate the tree to confirm the identification, but that has not proved to be the case. Serviceberry has also been mentioned as a choice, as has hackberry and dogwood. All these choices have at least a few issues, so let’s go through the choices and see where that takes us.

Hackberry: Twigs are hairy, the base of the leaves are rounded and one side of the leaves are toothed. In my photo, the base of the leaves are as pointy as the tips. The leaves have no teeth, and the stems don’t look hairy. So let’s cross this one off.

Serviceberry: Leaves are pointed and notched at base, finely saw-toothed, 11-17 straight veins on each side. This sounds good up to the saw-toothed leaves. Try as I might, I can’t find any evidence that the leaves are saw-toothed, even finely. And there aren’t 11-17 veins, and the veins curve near the tip of the leaf., so I think I have to rule this one out.

Black cherry: leaves elliptical, finely saw-toothed (there’s that word again) with curved or blunt teeth (whatever that means), dark bark with horizontal lines on the tree’s trunk and an elliptical stone to the fruit, which starts out red and then turns blackish. I still can’t see anything that looks like the leaves are saw-toothed, even if it’s a blunt or curved kind of saw-toothing. The dried berry or stone in the middle of the photo does look elliptical. I see no evidence that the fruit is turning black-ish, though. If anything, it appears to be going from red directly to the brownish stone. So I’m thinking this guess isn’t right either.

Dogwood: Leaves are elliptical (so far so good) that appear not toothed but tiny teeth are visible under a lens (okay I’ll give this one a pass) with 6-7 long carved veins on each side of the mid-vein. So far this one sounds good. Fruit is berry-like, elliptical and shiny red with several at the end of a long stalk. Okay, I was all ready to buy into this one, right up until the long stalk, which this tree doesn’t show at all. And the photos of the dogwood berry all show 4-5 berries clumped together, which is how I'm used to seeing them, but this tree shows no more than two and that just once. The other berries are all singles. Still, of all the guesses, this one seems to have more of the identification points than the others.

So maybe it’s a dogwood. (Congrats to sister on this one) But I still want to find that tree again for one final check. Isn't that just how it goes? Just when you think you know something, you find out there's more to the story. But that's what makes it fun.

Friday Quiz

Do you know what this tree is? Although this is not a typical view of this tree, this photo should give you everything you need to identify it. I will give you one hint. This is a not uncommon tree in Pennsylvania. Good luck!

Danger: Invasion Underway

I believe this flower is purple loosestrife, yet another of those invasive plants that take over when they arrive. I found the plant this past weekend at the nearby state park. As the years go on, I am ever more surprised at how many of the flowers I'd always assumed were native turn out to be invasive species from someplace else. So many of these invasive plants are also pretty ones, which I'm sure contributes to the difficulty of eradicating them. No one minds pulling up some ratty-looking little weed, but a pretty purple flower? That's a lot more difficult, isn't it?

Right around the cabin, the dry weather continues, with ever more trees turning a not-quite-bright yellow. It really does look like autumn, and every now and again I have to remind myself that it's not. Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps I will see some rain.

Last night I heard the foxes barking down near the old pond. At least the local animals don't have to worry where they will find water. The snowmaking ponds hold plenty. Animals on the next mountain over or further away are less lucky. Now, I'm starting to see the smaller streams dry up, too. We need an invasion of rain here, or at least a mini-invasion.

This isn't Autumn

The yellow color you can see in this photo was taken on Sunday morning. The yellow is not from an early fall color change. This same scene is repeated all around Roundtop and beyond right now. On the top of the hill next to Roundtop, perhaps 40% of the mountain is yellow, so that it does look like fall, but it’s not. The color change is caused by dry weather.

Until August 1, this area was having a normal year for precipitation and was perhaps even a tiny bit ahead of normal. Since August 1, I haven’t had a drop of rain, and this yellowing of the surrounding forest is the result. Every day as I drive home, more trees are turning yellow and withering. August has not been hot, hazy or humid, but it sure has been dry.

I’ve never seen yellowing like this before, and I’ve certainly never seen it in August at all. I do remember several dry years when I have seen some level of yellowing in the second week of September, when a little breeze brought down all those withered leaves and made it look like late autumn for an hour or so. I’ve never seen yellowing from dry weather to this extent. And late August is a long way yet from the second week of September.

As you can see from the photo, it’s not just the trees that are yellowing, but the forest understory too. Grass crunches underneath my footfall and disintegrates. This morning I smelled wood smoke and nearly had a panic until I realized it was coming from a neighbor’s fireplace--last night was under 50 degrees on the mountain.

Rain has occasionally been in the forecast during August and is in the forecast even now, but each time, the chance has evaporated before the day arrives. Even now, the precipitation chance is no higher than 30-40%--hardly enough to start a countdown or breath a sigh of relief that an end to the dryness is at hand. But I hope this time, the rain will come.

Bluebird Weather

This view is from the spot where I'm planning to do my fall hawkatching this year at Roundtop. Yesterday was a beautiful day, if not ideal hawkwatching weather. Good hawkatching weather is usually not good weather. Hawkwatchers call days like yesterday "bluebird weather." Good hawkwatching usually comes the day after a cold front has moved past. The day will usually have a strong northwest wind and usually brings a lot of hawks.

The one species of hawk that really hates strong winds are Broad-winged hawks. They prefer little to no breeze, and they like skies that let them cruise strong solar thermals. When they get that, they can pretty much fly higher than hawkwatchers can see. Hawkwatchers hate that.

This view looks to the north. Many hawks migrate by sticking to the ridges that are in the distance across the valley in this photo. The ridges from from the northeast to the southwest, but depending on weather, hawks and other birds will also leave the ridges and cross over Roundtop. That's what I hope for.

If you click on this photo and look at the larger view, you can see some yellowing of the trees, especially those in the left and center area. That's not fall color change. It's withering from the dryness that this area is currently experiencing. I'll have more on that tomorrow.

Yesterday was not a big migration day anywhere--not at Roundtop and also not at the ridge sites. It's still too early in the season for a really big day, and yesterday's weather was really too nice for hawks. It was plenty nice enough for Dog and me to sit out on the hill for a few hours, though. I saw 3 black vultures heading south, a large number of turkey vultures and 2 red-tailed hawks.

What is it?

Those who have been reading my blog for a while may remember the experiment I did in the woods behind my cabin this spring. Each week I dutifully took a photograph of the same spot so I could see how the forest changed from week to week as spring progressed in the woods. I took photos starting from when the snow melted although the way through the end of spring’s arrival. Eventually, the foliage didn’t get any more lush from week to week and I ended my experiment (see blog labels titled Experiment for details). My original idea was to document just how dense the foliage gets.

Last night I decided to reinvestigate my spot, as I’m thinking I may try the same experiment in reverse during the autumn. My first realization as I trudged out back is that I chose the wrong spot for my original experiment. I now have the battle scars to prove it. The forest right behind the cabin is far more densely grown than the spot I chose to photograph. That’s what today’s photograph is. This is what I stumbled, hacked and scraped through to reach my experiment spot. I am actually not more than 50 feet behind the cabin. You can (sort of) see the roof line. Well, I can see the roof line because I know where it is. Trust me it’s there.

When I actually got to my experiment spot, it didn’t look any different (yet) than it did this spring. But compared to the dense foliage in the photograph in front of you, it looks like a desert. I guess that’s what experiments are for. You find out how to make the next one better.

Nearly Wordless Thursday

I'd love to be sitting by the pond, staring into the blue sky, watching the clouds roll across the sky, and not having one place I needed to go or one thing I needed to do, but today is not that day. So for today, I'll leave you with a view of the mountains and a hope that your day will be as quiet as this photo.

Searching for the Perfect Spot

Hawkwatches in the eastern U.S. are gearing up for the fall migration season. Several have been watching and reporting since the first of August. Another batch started around August 15. This new migration season is already turning into an interesting one. The perfect weather that much of the mid-Atlantic states is experiencing seems to be encouraging hawks to move.

Yesterday, Bake Oven Knob, a hawkwatch north of Allentown, PA, saw 17 Bald Eagles. Twenty years ago, when the effects of DDT were still damaging the eagle population, that was not far less than a season’s worth of sightings. American Kestrels, which have been in a steep decline for some years now, are also currently putting in a decent showing. Waggoner’s Gap, PA, near Carlisle, saw 17 on August 16, and other sites have reported consistent numbers this week, too. Perhaps our smallest falcon will finally show some improving numbers.

Last evening I was wandering around the slopes at Roundtop, trying to find a sitting spot where I can watch hawks. I finally found a spot that at least temporarily suits me. Trees along the edges of the slopes limit the viewing to the west, but I found a spot where a break in the trees at least gives me some view to the west. For several years after I first moved here, I automatically climbed to the top of the mountain for my fall hawkwatching. It wasn’t particularly satisfying. I didn’t see all that many hawks. Eventually I found out why. The typical path of fall migratory hawks around Roundtop is often from the northeast to the southwest, and though the view from the top of the mountain is wonderful, it isn’t the best place to watch hawks. Oh, I can see to the west from up there, but the birds often sneak past through the valley between Nell’s Hill and Roundtop. I’ve found I’m actually better off if I don’t climb the mountain but stay within a closer distance of the valley.

The fact that the top of the mountain isn’t the best place for my local hawkwatching was brought home to me for the first time one year when I was down near the bottom of the mountain and a huge kettle of hundreds of Broad-winged Hawks fell out of a cloud in the north, circled once and then headed to the southwest. At that time Roundtop had a regular hawk counter on the hill, and he was starting to head off the mountain for the day. From where I was I jumped and hollered to get his attention, and though he looked, he never saw the birds. Since then I have searched for the "perfect spot" for fall hawkwatching. For several years I watched hawks from Roundtop’s north parking lot, which isn’t bad. The biggest problem there is that it’s lower elevation, and my views of the hawks are usually limited to small specks. So I realized I needed to get higher in order to have better views, but not so high that I couldn’t see over to where I needed to see. Maybe I’ve found it this time. I hope so. Now all I need is the time to sit there and find out.

A Special August

Yesterday I heard climate change predictions for the rest of this century that indicated the Midwestern U.S. might see temperatures rise towards and even above 125° during summer heat waves. Right now, that’s kind of difficult for me to imagine, especially as August 2008 has been one for the record books. It hasn’t been hot here. It hasn’t been hazy here. It hasn’t been particularly humid here. Boy, is this weather messed up! Nice weather in August may well be a first in my lifetime. If more Augusts were like this one, I might even learn to like summer!

Of course, even this August isn’t perfect (but it’s close). At the moment everything is pretty dry, getting dryer by the day, and the chances for rain have so far all evaporated before arriving. I’m starting to see the forest understory of annual plants withering and shriveling. Dust clouds are common behind tractors or cows’ hooves. The leaves are turning a duller shade of emerald, a sure sign of late summer. They haven’t yet reached that shade of dull, brownish green that comes just before the fall color change, but they aren’t far from that.

This morning as I left the mountain, the light was that of early morning--another sign fall is near. During early summer, the morning feels already half over when I leave for work. This morning the light was still soft and golden, the moon high in the west. It was the kind of morning where I would have been happy to just spend the day doing nothing more than staring at a horizon and watching the world go by.

Take a Trip, Never Leave

Saturday had the kind of spectacular weather you read about but too rarely get to see, especially in mid-summer in this area. The sky was deep blue, filled with puffy cumulus clouds, the temperature wasn’t hot. It was glorious. And I was hampered by about 10,000 interlopers invading the mountain for a music festival. But I couldn’t stay inside in weather like that. To do so would have been criminal.

So I ventured out, skirted the edge of the festival and disappeared into the woods as unobtrusively as I could, all with the beat of heavy metal music in the background. In this area, summer is most typically hot, humid and hazy. Clear, low humidity days are usually reserved for June and the autumn months. It’s very unusual to have such pleasant weather in mid-summer, and I wasn’t about to let this rare chance slip away. So out the door I went.

The first thing I noticed was how inviting the sunlight seemed as it streamed through the trees. The more typical summer haze deadens the brilliance of the sunlight somewhat, in addition to making me feel uncomfortable. Without the haze, the whole forest glowed with summer’s intense sunlight.

Sometimes for me, experiencing unusual weather is almost like visiting some other place. The light in New Hampshire is different from the light in south Texas. Here, in Pennsylvania, I’m used to the normal range of sunlight, and an event as rare as Saturday’s weather makes me feel as though I’ve traveled to a different place, with different light and different possibilities.

In Hiding

I wanted to post a photo that looks serene this morning, as my weekend will be anything but that. This is the weekend when the mountain turns into a latter day and more local Woodstock music festival. Thousands of people show up, and those of us who live near--both humans and animals--head for the hills. I'm going to be cabin-bound for a few days, as traffic in and out is more trouble to deal with than it's worth. I plan to use the time to catch up on a few projects I'm usually too busy running around to do.

This morning on our walk Dog was already outraged by the sight of a few of the roadies running around in a dune buggy. Add dune buggies to the list of vehicles that he hates.

So posting here will be on hold until the mountain returns to a more natural state. Look for me to be back online and out of my burrow again on Monday.

The Scene of the Crime (Recreation)

Doesn’t she look innocent? Last evening it was a different story. Baby Dog and I had to make a trip to the vet so she could be rechecked after completing treatment for a positive Lyme Disease result. When we got home, armed with dog and dog leash, I apparently didn’t fully latch the front screen door, which normally isn’t a big deal.

An hour or so after we got home, I’m watching TV and suddenly hear this huge ruckus out on the front deck—snarling and barking and lots of noise. I rush out there and am surprised to see Baby Dog outside and then I see the raccoon. It is on its back, claws at the ready, in a defensive posture. I grab Baby Dog by the scruff of the neck and pull her inside. The raccoon flees.

I was afraid Baby Dog had been bitten—it sure sounded like a fight, but I checked her all over and didn’t find a scratch. This morning she was fine on our morning run, and I checked her again and still didn’t find anything.

I think the raccoon was defending what it saw as its own private food source—the dish of cat food that I leave out for the feral cats that roam around at Roundtop. Last night, the cats hadn’t eaten all the food (only a few pieces were left). Raccoons in varying numbers and sizes are near-nightly visitors, cleaning up whatever the cats don’t eat during the day. They are also tough on my outside potted plants, as they sometimes dig them up looking for who knows what hidden in the potting soil. They’ve even been known to break into a bag of potting soil.

This particular raccoon wasn’t a large one, but it wasn’t a baby either. I think Baby Dog might have hit it with the front door when she went bombing outside, outraged by its presence. I had her tied to the front stairs at the time, as I’d just fed my own cats, and if I don’t tie the dogs when the cats are eating, well, that isn’t a pretty situation. So once outside she very quickly was literally at the end of her rope, which probably kept her from inflicting damage on the raccoon or being damaged herself.

This is the same dog who only an hour before was too shy to take a treat from the vet’s hand after her test for Lyme Disease. But a raccoon on the deck is a different story. Next time, I’m just going have to pay more attention to that door every time I go in or out.

The Darkening of Summer

My morning walks with Dog are now walks in darkness with a headlamp. I am already avoiding a section of our walk through the woods that’s hilly and rocky, as even with the headlamp the footing feels a bit unsafe in the darkness. Dog, whose eyes are better than mine in the dark, is confused by this change to our usual route. He will get over it, though, and by next spring he’ll act as though the longer walk is a surprise.

This change in the amount of morning light is one thing about the approaching colder weather that I never seem to quite get used to. I soon will get used to the fact that our morning walks are in darkness, but I never quite get used to the idea that mid-August is the time when this occurs. I don’t know why that is so but it is. For some reason, my mind seems to equate early morning darkness with September. This is patently untrue, as the fading of summer’s morning light always occurs now. So why I expect in September is a complete mystery. And yet, somehow, every year, I am surprised that I am wearing my headlamp in August on our morning walks. I am starting to think that unlike Dog, I am simply not trainable.

Dark and Stormy

It was a dark and stormy night....and morning....and well, much of the weekend, actually. Saturday was nice, but a tornado warning on Thursday evening just added to the stormy pattern I'm seeing right now.

The upside is that the weather has been much cooler than is typical for August, which is fine with me, except that over the years I've learned that a cool August usually means a hot September, and I can do without that during hawkwatching season. It's not just because I sunburn easily, either. Hot or warmer than average Sepember weather means this area doesn't get the northwest winds that brings fall hawks. They end up flying elsewhere or fly in a broad front so no one sees many hawks. Been there, done that, was hoping this year wouldn't be a repeat.

And speaking of hawkwatches, the first hawkwatches are already starting their fall seasons. Hawk Mountain, Waggoner's Gap, Second Mountain, Raccoon Ridge, Johnson City and Corpus Christi are already counting a few hawks. August hawkwatching can have its own rewards. It's a good time to get the eyes "dialed in" and ready for those fast and furious days of September. If you go to a popular hawkwatch, not many tourists will show up yet, so the hours spent on the hawkwatch are quiet and enjoyable. August is also a good time to catch up on the lives of the few fellow hawkwatchers who will be on the mountain with you, so you won't be chatting about Johnny's graduation and miss something good flying by. All that will done with by the time September rolls around.

Waggoner's Gap had a good early season day on Saturday, with 33 Broad-winged Hawks and 3 Bald Eagles among the 51 birds seen that day. Many sites won't start until August 15 and the rest won't start until September 1.

Broad-winged Hawks will peak in this area around September 17-18, most likely. During a good flight, sites will see thousands of these birds. If you live near a Great Lakes site, you may well see tens of thousands of these small hawks. The third week of October is a good time to see the biggest variety of species, with 14 species of hawks possible. In this area I usually figure on October 20-21 as being a great time for that. It's not too early to plan a trip to your nearest hawkwatch. Before the season gets going full bore, I'll give you a few tips on what to take with your for a day at your local hawkwatch.

Dumpster Diver

The Black Vultures are dumpster diving again. Maybe he or she was hoping that fan was still in the box, though it hasn't been that hot and how the bird was planning to plug it in, I have no idea. Oddly, the Turkey Vultures rarely dumpster dive, and I'm starting to wonder if the propensity for diving is a true behavioral distinction between the two species. I can almost see the field guides now. "If the bird is found in a dumpster, it's almost certainly a black vulture, as turkey vultures prefer to scavenge for carcasses along roads."

It's been a slow day here at Roundtop. I guess you could tell that, huh?

Summer's Morning Light

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to stop me in my tracks. This morning, for a few moments, a small circle of sunlight caressed a tiny woodland seedling. It’s not even a pretty seedling, but one whose leaves are half-eaten by something. The plant is already yellowing and will likely not survive the summer. The eaten leaves make it difficult for me to even identify what it is. But the plant was wet with an early morning shower, and then bathed in the sun’s early morning light that followed the rain. Suddenly this tiny, even pathetic little seedling, looked beautiful to me.

That’s what nature does for me. In an instant it can change my perception and make me see something in a different light. It even provides the light.

Spicebush Swallowtail

My photo today is a male spicebush swallowtail. You can tell it’s a male by the blue spots on its lower wings. Females spots here are yellowish, not blue. Also, the female’s yellow spots on the upper wing edge tend to be smaller and less dramatic.

This summer has been a great one at the cabin for swallowtail species. I’ve seen every species of them that are possible here—tiger, zebra, pipevine, great and black. The spicebush is common here and throughout Pennsylvania. For me, the zebra swallowtail was the best sighting. I don’t see them very commonly.

I also wanted to mention another speaker at the Kittatinny Roundtable (see yesterday’s post). Dan Kunkle has color-marked more than 300 Red-tailed Hawks over several seasons, and his results have led him to question the "local redtail" assumptions many hawkwatches make about redtails seen in the early part of the season. Many hawkwatches assume redtails flying around their sites in the early part of the migration season are local birds just fooling around and not migrating. Dan’s returns from his color-marked birds found that none of the birds he trapped stayed where they were color-dyed. The dyes were chosen for the time of year the bird was trapped, and even the early season "trappees" weren’t seen again locally, though many were seen elsewhere, sometimes very far afield.

Hawks, Hawkwatchers and Wind Turbines

On Saturday I went up to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s Acopian Center for what was the 30th Kittatinny Roundtable hosted by the sanctuary’s senior biologist Laurie Goodrich. The roundtable gathers hawk counters from sites along the Kittatinny Ridge to talk about and analyze hawk counts from the previous migration seasons. In the afternoon Laurie usually has a speaker or two talk about some of their research. If you’re a hawkwatcher or a hawk counter or just a hawk dork like me, it’s a fun day.

This year two non-ridge hawkwatch sites from Delaware joined the fun. Hawkwatchers tend to be competitive about their preferred site and the hawks seen there. I’ve more than once known someone to count in horrible weather because they knew someone from another site would still be counting, and they didn’t want to miss seeing something. Sometimes one site will start counting earlier in the migration season in hopes it will give them more hawks than another site by the end of the season. And in cases where that other site does "beat" your own favorite site, there’s still plenty of ways to "win." You can always find one species where that other site didn’t see as many as your site. Or your site might have fewer counting hours but more hawks seen per hour. There’s always something. So the morning comparison of hawk counts is always fun.

In the afternoon, Laurie started off with Chris Farmer, who’s one of the main guys working on HMANA’s raptor population index. He’s a real statistics kind of guy but still manages to make most of what he says understandable to non-statistical folks. His talk was about the impact of wind farms on raptor and songbird migration. Raptors and other songbirds apparently can’t see or at least have difficulty seeing the blades of the wind turbines, which are often sited along ridgetops. Since that’s where birds also migrate, the potential impact on populations of birds as the number of wind turbines grows, is of critical concern to hawkwatchers. Chris is looking at where the turbines are located, plus the area of the blades’ sweeps plus the preferred height of migration by species to determine which species are likely to be most vulnerable to the blades. Birds that fly the highest will be less impacted than the ones who prefer lower flight paths. One thing I learned is that a 90 meter wind tower sweeps about 1.5 acres of air. Right now, it looks as though smaller raptors, such as the already declining kestrel and the sharp-shinned hawks, are among the most vulnerable.

I was especially interested in Chris’s discussion of the "non-lethal" impact of wind towers. Although birds can’t see the blades well, they can see the towers. Since many birds fly along ridges because the air around them produces updrafts that makes migration physically easier, avoiding the ridge because there’s a long line of towers atop them also creates problems. For example, a bird will use about 4 times the amount of energy during powered flight than during soaring. So if the migration path from Central America is lined with towers that the birds avoid, the trip will become even more fraught with difficulty than it is now. And how does that extra exhaustion impact breeding success, assuming of course, the birds survive a trip that’s 4 times more exhausting than it is today?

Proper siting of wind towers thus become crucial, as we are all suffering from issues with energy creation associated with oil right now. Siting towers away from ridge tops and known migration paths is vital. And to know precisely where some of the migration pathways are, studies through several migration seasons are needed and should be required, though they aren’t currently.
Some European countries also require that wind towers be turned off during days where migration is heaviest. That’s one way our daily hawkwatch count information could be a critical part of our future energy plans, though in the U.S. there’s currently nothing to require companies to turn off their wind towers. I’d like to think that kind of cooperation would be a possibility here, though, if only because a company would get a lot of bad press from one photo of our national symbol chopped in half by a wind turbine. It would be nice to think the wind companies would be environmentally aware enough to want to do that on their own, but I suspect national legislation would work a lot better.

The photo in today's post was taken in our meeting room in the Acopian Center. The man in the center is Maurice Broun, Hawk Mountain's first curator, who with his wife Irma, in the photo to the right, single-handedly stopped the sport shooting of hawks on the mountain, which led to statewide and then national legislation protecting all birds of prey. It's still possible to find spend brass .22 shells up near North Lookout. Hawk Mountain became the first sanctuary for birds of prey in 1934.

The Trouble with Frogs

Baby Dog has discovered the joys of frog chasing. Last evening she gaily galloped around the edge of the pond, scattering frogs by the hundreds. I tried to count them but eventually gave up. Then I tried to estimate the number of them and that didn’t work too well either. Last year when I counted 73 frogs, they were easy to count. They leapt into the water one by one, right after the other, like some kind of frog "wave" like you see at a sporting event.

This year there are so many of them that a dozen or more will leap all at once, making an accurate count virtually impossible. So I tried to estimate them like I do with a sky full of Broad-winged Hawks. It’s not the same thing. Frogs are gone quickly. Broadwings at least give me some seconds to pick a spot in the sky, look at the dots and try to figure out how many there are.

My best guess is that there are something in the neighborhood of 300 frogs in this pond. After I got to a count/guess of 150, I was only halfway around the pond, and I gave up entirely. Baby Dog was too far ahead, racing off-lead along the edge. She seemed to really enjoy making those frogs leap into the water. She was trying to start a second lap around when I finally go her to come back.

Calico Pennant

I wasn't going to post this photo, as it's not as clear as it should be. But because I also didn't know what kind of dragonfly this was, I used the photo to help identify it. And as I learned more about this Calico Pennant dragonfly, also known as an Elisa Skimmer, I decided to go ahead and run the photo anyway. This one is a male. The females are yellow where this fellow is red.


The Calico Pennant is quite widespread in some areas. Pennsylvania isn't one of those. In my region, the calico is only reported in my county and two neighboring ones. Then there's a gap of many counties, reports of it in the western part of the state and again in several counties in the eastern part of the state with more gaps in between.


Oddly, at least to me, this pattern is also repeated thoughout most of the calico pennant's range, with the exception of Ohio and New Jersey, where it's reported in almost every county. So I'm wondering, do these reports have more to do with the people reporting sightings or with the dragonfly's actual range? Doesn't it seem odd that it's found everywhere in Ohio and New Jersey but only reported sporadically elsewhere?


The calico pennant I found was over on the new pond at Roundtop, and its habitat is described as ponds and marshes, which is the typical habitat of virtually every dragonfly in the world. Nothing seems unusual or atypical about that. The new pond isn't atypically large or small and it doesn't have much in the way of marshy vegetation, like cattails, along its edges. So why would this lovely dragonfly appear to have so many gaps in its range? I suspect these alleged gaps don't really exist. I think this beauty is simply unreported or under-reported. And since now is the time the calico pennant is busy flying around, maybe this would also be a good time for people to get out there and look for it. Let's fill in a few of these gaps!

Frogs Around the Pond

I fully admit that this is likely the worst frog photograph you have ever seen. I know it's the it's not the frog photo I wanted to take or post. After months of waiting and various attempts, this is the best frog photo I've been able to come up with. Very disappointing.

Last year, at some point during the summer, I counted 73 frogs leaping into the water as I walked around the half-mile circumference of the new pond. This year, there are easily double, if not triple that number. When I walk around the pond it's like a froggy ballet, one after another, leaping from some invisible spot along the pond's edge to the invisible safety of the water.

I've tried sneaking up on them. I've tried walking slower than slowest super slo-mo known to humankind in hopes I wouldn't scare them. I've tried sitting immobile for what feels like hours in the broiling sun hoping they will think I'm a stone or a stump or something and return to their pond-side perches. No luck. These stupid frogs are too smart for me. I give up.

So here's my frog photo, such as it is. You can just barely see this guy's eyes and head peeking around the edge of the log. It's a green frog, which is what most of the dozens of frogs currently inhabiting the new pond are. I have heard several bullfrogs, too. Since I haven't been able to get closer, I don't know if any other species are here, perhaps pickeral or leopard frogs.

Green frogs, also known as bronze frogs, are the most common ones in this area. There's been many stories locally about how native frogs and salamanders were decimated by acid rain, which caused breeding to fail. Much work was done to improve that situation, though many streams and ponds have been slow to recover. Perhaps because the new pond is, well, new, the water here is benefiting from that work in a way that is not seen as dramatically in pre-existing ponds. Perhaps it's because the water in the new pond is periodically replenished with fresh water from the nearby Beaver Creek that acidity here does not appear to be as problematic as elsewehere.

Whatever the reason, the local frogs are thriving and numerous, though they sure aren't willing to pose for pictures.

A Pretty Pair

Don’t these two make a handsome pair? They were parading around Roundtop the other day, oblivious to passing traffic (not that there’s much). I’m always a little surprised at just how large turkeys are, much larger than Canada geese. And yet, I see them not all that often. Wouldn’t you think that a creature this size would stand out more? And since where you find one turkey, you always find more, sometimes many more, I’d think they’d be more obvious, somehow. And even if I didn’t see them all that often, I would expect to see more signs of them—hear the gobbling frequently, see signs of scratching more often, but I don’t. And then suddenly, they simply waltz out into the open and remind me they are still around. Funny birds.

I'm at that point in the summer season where I'm waiting for the next thing to happen. Summer is here. It's in full swing. I'm ready for it to be done and something else to take its place. I thnk one of the reasons I don't care much for summer is that it feels a bit static to me. It arrives, it stays and little changes until it's time for fall. Spring and fall are seasons of near-constant change. Winter also feels changeable to me--the deepening or lessening of the temperature with the ever-present threat of storms. To me, summer doesn't change all that much. I get bored. It's probably just me.

Not What I Expected

The flower in this photo is, I think, a yellow loosestrife. It might be an intermediate yellow loosestrife, one of the lysimachia family. It’s the pointy leaf shape that makes me think that’s what it is.

This weekend did not proceed as I hoped. I managed to carve out some time for a nice walk in the woods but thunderstorms kept me from venturing too far. Saturday was consumed with errands early on, and by the time those were taken care of, rain and thunder ruled the afternoon. Dog and I actually got to set out on a walk on Sunday morning. I think we’d walked all of about 150 yards when a big boom of thunder rolled through the forest from lightning that was only 2-3 miles away. We turned around and went back to the cabin. The storm played around the edges of the forest for several hours, and when it finally moved off for good, the temperature was too high for an enjoyable walk, so we weren’t able to do the major exploring I like to do on the weekends.

I watched the hummingbird wars from my front deck—those little warriors cleaned out the feeder in two days. Between guarding the feeder and chasing off intruders, it’s no wonder those tiny birds use so much energy. A pair of Wild Turkey rambled around after one of the storms passed—no young with them, though. It was a quiet weekend. Summer doldrums are here.

Go With the Green

For at least a day or two, I am giving up looking for things in the forest that are not-green. I’ve decided for the moment to go with the greenery around me, so today’s photo reflects that. This fern is a Christmas fern, one of the most common ferns around the woods of Roundtop and throughout the east coast. Christmas ferns are so named because they stay green all winter and were once commonly used in Christmas decorations.

References I have found suggest that the fern was likely named in the Victorian era, when ferns were especially popular. For a while, apparently, the ferns were so popular as Christmas decorations that they became difficult to find in the wild. Fortunately, that craze has passed, and this fern is common again. It is reported to be often seen with wood ferns of the genus dryopteris, which I can confirm to be true, at least here on Roundtop.

Forest Changes

So far the summer heat in July here on Roundtop feels about average, but 2008 is turning out to be wetter than has been typical over the last several years. The last several summers were especially dry ones, however, so this year may simply be a normal one again. After a few dry summers, I lose my sense of what "normal" is supposed to be.

This morning the forest is still a bit foggy after the storms of the past few days but greener than it was before the latest round of storms. I snapped this morning’s photo along the trail that runs over to the "new" pond, which is now 3-4 years old. In this photo you can’t see the pond itself, but you can see towards the back of the photo that the trees are thinner on the left side of the photo compared to the right side. The left side is where the pond is.

With all the rain, the forest should stay this lovely deep shade of emerald green for at least a week or two even if hot weather returns, which thankfully as far as I’m concerned, isn’t in the forecast.

It is now noticeably darker in the mornings than it was just a week or so ago. I don’t need my headlamp yet in the mornings when I walk Dog and Baby Dog, but that event isn’t far off. Already, I can tell the light difference by the birds I see. Gone are the robins and bluebirds when I take the morning walk. They aren’t up yet. Instead, I see only crows and hear little more than the early-rising pewees.

I am already planning this evening's walk. The storms are past now, and the forest should be drying out enough so that I can walk in it without getting soaked. I know I will see something different and unusual. I always do. If it’s one thing I’ve learned from my years of living here on the mountain, it’s that the forest changes from week to week, from storm to storm. It is never the same. Different plants bloom, different insects are out, the teenaged birds begin to appear, confident they own the world. The forest always changes, is always different. There's always something new to see, and I look forward to finding it.

Widow Skimmer

This morning’s photo was a lucky one for me as I have notoriously poor luck taking photos of dragonflies. Last night it stormed again, though this time I didn’t get hit with the worst of the wind and lightning. So this morning it is foggy and still raining a bit, and I was planning to get a foggy morning forest photo. While I was setting up that shot, I suddenly saw this Widow Skimmer on a leaf almost in front of me. Miracle of miracles, it didn’t fly before I got a quick shot.

Widow skimmers are a common dragonfly in most of the U.S. They are probably the most common ospecies here on Roundtop. This dragonfly got the name "widow" as the male doesn’t stay with the female after she lays her eggs, as most of them do. This dragonfly is, I think, a male, though perhaps not quite an adult male. Males have white areas on the outside of the black area on the wing. This one has a bit of that, though his white area isn’t nearly as defined or as large as others I’ve seen.

There’s a good site called NJOdes (for New Jersey Odonates) that specializes in dragonflies and has tons of good photos and information to help ID them, at least for the New Jersey species. Still, many dragonflies are pretty widespread, so even folks not from the east coast may well find what they’re trying to ID here.

So today is likely going to be a long day for me. The storm came through last night around 2 a.m. (I think), bringing thunder, lightning, rain, wind and the sudden appearance of 60 lb. Dog on my bed. This time, the closest lightning strike was about a mile away, plenty close enough. The storm continued to around 4 a.m., when things finally quieted enough for me to fall back asleep. As I said, this time I didn’t get the worst of the storm, but a short night’s sleep will likely keep me out of sorts, at least until I get an extra cup of coffee.

Forest Mysteries

Today’s flower is St. John’s Wort, so named as its blooming typically coincides with the festival of St. John on June 24. This plant is (yet) another one brought over to the new world from Europe. I am starting to wonder what this area looked like before all these plants arrived from Europe. Some days it feels as though everything I thought was a native plant turns out to be an immigrant.

More of the forest’s annual plants around me are starting to turn yellow-ish and are beginning to die back. In addition to mayapple, last evening I saw a few raspberry bushes that are starting to yellow at the tips. I’m trying not to include any individual plants that may, for whatever reason, be stressed. If I don’t see several plants of the same species in different locations that are showing the same tendencies, I’m not including them. I’m starting to think that this beginning of the die-off is earlier than usual, though I have absolutely no idea why that would be so.

Even in dry years, August is typically the time I notice the annual plants beginning to yellow. 2008 has not been a dry year. It’s been pretty average for rainfall, even slightly (though not terribly) above average. The temperature has not, overall, been extreme either. However, in mid-June this area had a 3-day spell of near 100 degree temperatures, which was very high for that time of the year. Could that have somehow impacted when the annual plants start to die back?? Is the cause something else entirely? Perhaps the leaf canopy is thicker than usual and not allowing these plants to get the amount of sunlight they want. This is yet another mystery for which I have no answers. The forest is like that. Always something unusual going on., if I am observant enough to see it.

Whew! Storm's Over!

This summer’s batch of Canada Geese are nearly full grown and are now almost the size of the adults. In fact, I know both parents are in this photo, but the only one that’s obviously a parent is the goose on the right watching protectively. The young birds can’t fly yet, but that event won’t be far off now.

The heat wave here on the mountain is not quite broken yet, but it is on its way out. Today it’s only supposed to reach 90 degrees, an improvement. Last evening, not long before dark, I saw the sky darkening and knew a storm was on the way. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I closed all the windows. The wind picked up and was soon followed by a near-torrential rain. All of a sudden, a huge lightning flash scared the heck out of me. The flash was instantly followed by thunder. The power went out, though came back on almost immediately. The cats ran under the bed. Dog tried to climb under the sofa. Baby Dog fled upstairs.

For a few seconds I afraid lightning had struck the cabin. The storm---that single blast of lightning was the only one—didn’t last long. As soon as I felt reasonably safe and the rain let up, I went outside to check the house. Fortunately, everything looked fine. I also checked out the nearby trees and didn’t see anything there either. All I know for sure is that the lightning was extremely close—probably as closes as I’ve ever had it. I haven’t checked too far behind the cabin yet—darkness soon followed the storm. Perhaps this evening I’ll be able to look at more of the trees behind the cabin.

At this point I’m even wondering if the lightning actually struck anything. I was sitting in the living room by the large picture window when the lightning struck. To me, it looked like a big round explosion of light that I’m guessing was some feet into the woods. I never saw a bolt, just that big round light that was blinding. It was almost as though the electrical charge just exploded in the air. As the storm let up, I checked the utility poles near the cabin, and they were all okay, too. So for now this story doesn’t yet have an ending. I just know that I don’t want to have lightning get any closer than that—ever!

Moonrise on a Summer Evening

Moonrise on a clear summer evening is always a magical moment. For me, there's just something special about watching the moon clearing the trees and filling the sky. Somehow it seems rare to me, though it's not. Perhaps it's only that I rarely get to see the moon rise that's special. Sometimes it's cloudy, sometimes moonrise is after my bedtime, but sometimes, the moon rises on a clear summer evening just as the sun is setting, and the result always makes me pause.

Yesterday was day three of this little July heatwave, but I got a brief break from it in the afternoon. A tiny thunderstorm cell--the only one in the area--popped up over Roundtop. The tiny cell brought a few booms of thunder and a brief spattering of rain, and best of all dropped the temperature 15 degrees. So my evening was pleasant instead of soggy.

Right now around the cabin I'm having a banner year for butterflies, but I have been completely skunked in trying to photograph them. Swallowtails are really in evidence--tiger swallowtails, zebras, pipevine, black--they've all bee around but are impossibly camera shy. Or, I have seen them when I didn't have the camera in hand. And it's not just swallowtails--Great Spangled Fritellaries, Painted Ladies--they are all having their moment right now. Perhaps today will be the day when one will pose for me.!

Summer Heat Wave

A summer heat wave is insinuating itself onto the mountain for a few days. Up here where I live, the day’s high temperature is nearly always a few degrees lower than down in the open suburbs. The trees offer both shade and protection from the worst of the heat. Unfortunately, the mountain offers me no respite from the humidity. Indeed, sometimes I think the trees make the humidity feel even worse, especially on those days with little breeze.

The current heat wave will be a mild one and only barely qualifies. In this area, to be termed a heat wave, the weather must be at least three days in a row of 90 degrees or more. This one might run to four days, but two of those days the high temperature is only to be right at 90 and the other two days are only predicted to be 92 or 93. So it shouldn’t be too awful, plus it is July and weather like this is to be expected here.

What constitutes an official heat wave varies from area to area, though meteorologists have an official definition that says the daily maximum temperature should be at least 5 degrees above average maximum temperature for five consecutive days. Apparently, the more commonly used definition in the U.S. is the 3-days and 90+ degree one, which was defined in 1900. Other countries have their own definition. In the Netherlands, for example, a heat wave is 5 consecutive days above 77 degrees F., providing at least 3 of those days are also above 86 degrees F.

In any event, it’s summer and it’s hot, which is the main reason why I am now officially reporting that the start of winter is just 158 days away. Even so, I will be happier when fall arrives but will begin to improve once fall migration starts, which is usually before that. Shorebird migration might even be starting now, but as I don’t live near a shore I can’t quite bring myself to count that. Still, if I’m lucky, a few shorebirds may pause briefly on one or the other of the snowmaking ponds. I can only hope.

Summer Ramblings

Now is the time of the year in my woods when the vegetation is at its fullest and most lush. The color of the forest has darkened from the bright neon green of spring to a rich emerald tone, though hasn’t yet begun to fade towards the dull green of late August.

The woods feel more indolent than they did just a week or so ago, slower now that the frenzy of spring has passed. The evenings are still, filled with the song of wood thrush, and near dark, with the solitary call of a pewee. The pewee’s call almost echoes through the forest, the notes filling the empty spaces between the leaves and lingering long after the other birds have settled for the night.

Mid-summer has a quietness, a stillness, of its own. It’s not like the silence of winter, where a small noise travels far through the bare trees, though few noises arise to break that silence. This is more like the quiet of a room with the door closed behind me. Only someone inside the room can hear what happens in the room. Noises from the other side of the door are muffled, distant. In the summer forest, the leaves are like doors, screening away the noises from just a few trees away. And so the pewee and I are in the same room, in a way, in the same corner of the summer forest, where even such a small sound can fill the room.

My Green Wall (Eastern Side)

Today’s photo shows a wall of the "green box" that surrounds me right now. This year the vegetation seems especially lush. This isn’t surprising. After several years drought of greater or lesser severity, 2008 has been marked by rainfall that’s a bit above the average. Just as important, the rain has been spaced appropriately, with rarely a week passing without at least a little rain.

his weekend I tried to visit my "experiment site" and found I couldn’t get through the vegetation from the direction I usually approach. In truth, I didn’t try particularly hard. I was wearing shorts, and long pants and a lopper for the thistly vines might well have done the trick. I will try again once the forest dries a bit.

am already noticing a few of the forest’s annual plants turning yellow and starting to die back. I was aware that plants like the mayapple die off early, but I tended to think that a July die-back was due to lack of rainfall in the previous four to five years. That I’m still seeing these plants dieing now in a year a good rainfall has finally gotten through to me that these are very short-lived plants. Perhaps I should make this the first "sign" of fall.

Another change: This morning it was darker when I walked Dog than it has been for a while. For some reason, I had it in my head that the shortening of the day's light wasn't noticeable on our walks until August.

Debunking Touch Me Not! (and a few other things)

Today's photo is a touch-me-not, also known as jewelweed. Last year I remember posting a photo of a spotted touch-me-not flower. This one does not have any spots and may be a different variety. Whenever I see the spotted touch-me-not, the spots are pretty noticeable, which as you can see in today's photo, aren't in this plant or the ones that were around it.

Touch-me-nots are so named because when you touch them, them fall apart, often into a kind of gelatinous mass, which appeals to children once they get past the gooiness of it all.


Most of the information I've found about jewelweed or touch-me-not is about what it is not. It's not a good remedy for poison ivy, but in times past people thought it was. There's even an old saying, "Wherever poison ivy is found, jewelweed grows close by." Even the saying is wrong, apparently. Touch-me-not prefers to grow in disturbed areas, preferably ones tending to shade and thrives in spots with a limestone-rich soil. Poison ivy isn't that picky.


Touch-me-not is a member of the impatiens family and whether because of that or whether because of its now-debunked anti-itch properties, this was a plant that was taken back to Europe after settlers arrived in the New World. That's quite a switch, as I've too often found wildflowers I've assumed to be natives only to discovered they were introduced from Europe. Apparently touch-me-not can still be found there, though it hasn't hybridized with any of their native plants.

Question: is it just me, or do American goldfinches appear to be dispersing earlier than usual? I think of August as the time when goldfinches are "vacationing" and traveling around, but they seem to be starting their travels early this year.

And in late news, Derby Hill, a prime spring hawkwatching spot along Lake Ontario in New York, reported 40 northbound Broad-winged hawks on Tuesday. I had to read the report a couple of times before the information was successfully implanted in my brain. I kept trying to turn the birds into south-bound or fall migrants. The birds were either migrating or dispersing north ahead of a front and were clearly kettling and streaming.

Storms of Summer

I half expected a tornado to pop out of this cloud last night, and fortunately that didn't happen. I had a meeting in the evening and was driving back to the cabin, knowing I was just a step or two ahead of the storm. Then I got out of the car to take a few photos. As a result, when I did get back to the cabin a few minutes later, I only just pulled into the lane when the sky opened up, and a torrent of rain kept me from getting out of the car. It was like someone dumped a huge bucket right on top of Roundtop. I had over one inch of rain in 15 minutes, and I was lucky. Several miles away, they ended up with around 3 inches, but several miles to the north not a drop fell.

I've been working on the fall issue of Hawk Migration Studies, the journal published by the Hawk Migration Association of North America, and this week while editing the eastern flyway report, the flyway editor wrote that he lamented what he called the "new weather." I'd not heard this phrase before, but the more I think about it, the better I think it's a good one.

Back in the day, more than 20 years ago when I first started hawkwatching, we didn't know nearly as much as we do today about weather and migration. But, even then experienced hawkwatchers had a tendency to call in "sick" at work and show up on a hawkwatch in the fall the day after a cold front blew through, bringing with it northwest winds. For some years now, the problem has been that fall now rarely brings those sweeping cold fronts, and as a result patterns of migration have changed.

The flyway editor was noting that traditional hawkwatches that used to get many thousands of hawks (and other avian migrants) now rarely get those excellent flights. Instead, because the weather and wind patterns have now shifted, some ridge or hill that never saw much of a flight before is suddenly the stellar site from which to watch migration. Migration is no longer funneled by wind patterns past the traditional migration sites. Instead, migration now often follows a broader front or ends up on the coast or sometimes runs more inland than before, and these new areas are suddenly the hot spots.

I was thinking about this "new weather" last night when this storm clobbered my little corner of the world. Summer thunderstorms are not a new phenomenon here, but what is different is that the storms pass almost every night. Further, the storms are more localized. Instead of a storm that hits the region as a whole, these intense cells suddenly pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, and douse a small area with lots of severe weather. Only a few miles away, the storm isn't even present. Weird, eh? I guess it's just the new weather.

Wet Sassafras

Today’s photo is the leaves of a sassafras tree, wet from the storm that I got last evening. The leaves are often described as being a mitten shape, though I've never had a pair of mittens with three fingers. Apparently some of the leaves do have two lobes instead of three, but I don't think I've seen that on any of the local trees.


When I was a kid my dad would pluck a leaf and let me chew on the end of it, the way you might chew on a blade of grass. The flavor is wonderful, kind of minty in a way, though without quite as “bright” a tang to it. The roots were used to make sassafras tea and were at one time the flavoring in root beer. Now I read that sassafras is considered toxic and it is banned from food substances in Canada and the U.S. It was found to cause liver damage, though I suspect you'll need to do more than occasionally chew on the end of one. If there’s anything left with sassafras flavor in it, it cannot be made with real sassafras. All I can say is that I’m still here, though I’ve never gobbled sassafras in any amount. Chewing on a leaf once a year is about my limit. The oil is still used in some fragrances, though.

And did I mention rain again? I’m now up to day 3 with my laundry still on the line. Last evening, if I’d gotten home 5 minutes earlier, I could have had it off the line and in the drawer. Instead, it was doused with nearly an inch of rain. This is starting to be kind of funny. I wonder if tomorrow will be the day….

Dog Days

Rain and humidity have dominated the past few days in the natural world around my cabin. The rain was welcome, and everything looks newly green again. The humidity is less welcome. Nothing dries out—not the clothes on my line, not me. Even inside the cabin everything feels damp. Today—more rain. I’m just hoping the clothes don’t rot before they dry.

High humidity is one of the hallmarks of summer in this area. We even have a name for it—the 3 H’s (hazy, hot and humid). At the moment I am experiencing two out of those three. Fortunately, it’s not all that hot. But even with a temperature of only 75 degrees or so, the extreme humidity makes me feel uncomfortably warm, because the dew point is nearly the same as the temperature. Humans start to say the weather feels oppressive when the dew point gets to the range of 59-68. Currently, I have 70 for a dew point. It’s a bit like breathing water right now, only without the gills.

I didn’t foray much into the woods this weekend. Even the dogs didn’t seem to mind my lack of activity for once. Last evening but well before dark, a time we usually spend walking, we sat out on the front deck and listened to two great horned owls call. The birds were close to the cabin, and nearly every call came from a slightly different spot, though I never saw them. The dogs were content to loll on the deck with me and didn’t seem to miss our evening walk. Baby Dog barked at the owls, though. Dog and I didn’t move.

The Guns of Gettysburg

Yesterday I heard the guns of Gettysburg, cannons rumbling deep and low across the hills and valleys. The sound started slowly, and for the first moments I thought it was distant thunder. But then the sounds quickened, and I knew.

One hundred forty-five years ago, those cannons fired in earnest, at brothers and sons and friends across opposite lines. The sound was louder then, loud enough at some point to wake a babe that slept only a few feet away from where I sat now. Like the people who lived then, the sound was first thought to be thunder, and like me now, they soon realized that it wasn’t. Still, for a few moments last evening, I understood, a bit, what it was like to have lived here then, when those guns of Gettysburg first fired at brothers and sons and friends across a grassy field. Last evening I sat some 20 miles away from the battlefield, and the sound of cannons fired across the fields in a reenactment of those three days still reached me and took me back 145 years.

Freedom isn’t free, nor does it come cheap. Its cost is very dear, in every sense of that word. Its value is still worth every drop it costs.

Time for a Little Joy

Butter and eggs is one of my favorite wildflowers. The name alone is enough to intrigue me. It’s so descriptive yet so unscientific. I tire of logical, scientific descriptions in the names of things. Those kinds of names just feel so bland and lacking in joy after a while. I find nature endlessly joyful, and I believe names should at least attempt to capture that. Can you blame someone for not wanting to rush right out when they hear Clay-colored Sparrow? I mean, really, aren’t they all, just about? Or Smooth Hedge Nettle? That doesn’t sound very exciting either, though it has a lovely little flower. But a name as simple as butter and eggs, how could you not want to see that?

Another common name for butter and eggs is toadflax, which isn’t bad either, though simply isn’t as pretty a name as butter and eggs. It’s also called brideweed, bridewort, butter haycocks, bunny haycocks, cat’s snout, dead men’s bones, devil’s flax, eggs and bacon, impudent lawyer (now there’s a good one) and lion’s mouth, to name just a few. And I do mean just a few.
The plant is a favorite with bees, bumblebees, moths, butterflies and other strong insects. Because the flower’s underlip is largely closed, wimpy little insects aren’t going to be able to pollinate it.

As so many of our North American plants are, butter and eggs is not native to the U.S. It’s native to Europe and "escaped" from early settlers’ cultivated plots. Today, of course, it is common along roadsides and well-drained areas. I found this one this morning on a bank, growing next to chicory and assorted other plants that are happy to be feral , just like me.

One Good Thing About Summer

Summer mornings can be lovely times. Before the heat of the day withers plants and people alike, before the air fills with humidity, before thunderstorms send me scurrying inside, before all that are the mornings.

In the mornings of summer, the air feels warm and comforting, not cloying. In the mornings a breeze caresses and whispers before it dies under the afternoon sun. Deer tiptoe across the lane in front of Dog and me. The birds sing. Ah, if these early mornings would only last all day!

The Trouble with Summer

Now that Adventure Camp is over until mid-July, my daily routine of walks around the forest is getting back to normal. I’m already surprised at the difference just a few days away has made. After the spring wildflowers finished their blooms, I had a week or so before the summer wildflowers started. For that week, few blooms were in evidence, and the landscape seemed an unremitting green. This week, I have new blooms and new colors again!

St. John’s Wort is starting to bloom. The various clovers are blooming. More daisies are in bloom. The Queen Anne’s lace is out, plus the purple ironweed and blooming raspberry. The day lilies or farmer lilies line the roadsides. In short, everything around me is colorful again.

Readers of this blog know that I am not a summer person. Give me snow and winter any day, but barring that fall is fine, and I’m starting to really enjoy that after winter, early spring time before the leaves come out. I have tried, seriously tried, to enjoy summer, but I'm not very good at it, and I'm tempted to stop trying altogether and just spend 2-3 months in a grumpy funk.

In summer, I really have to look hard for something about it to enjoy. Here's why I don't like summer: heat and humidity, lightning and the threat of fire, my view obscured by leaves, deerflies, no new birds to see. Well, I could make this list longer but you get the picture, I’m sure. So that week between spring and summer without new wildflowers feels like an eternity to me. But now, that week is over, the summer wildflowers are here, and I have something to enjoy again about summer. At last!