May, 2013 - Trail Report Archive
Notes and Changes since last report
- It was 70°F and partly cloudy with light winds at 3:15 PM on May 16, 2013.
- I've been slowly returning to my usual Wed afternoon schedule: Thur at 3 is closer than Fri at 5...
- Butterfly arrivals were ramping up with pearl crescent and silver-spotted skipper.
- Swamp azalea almost came and went unnoticed, but large yellow lady's-slipper was just starting.
The Trails
- Behind the Carriage House, the peculiar buckeye was now in bloom.
- So too were fothergilla and sweet shrub or calycanthus. Somewhere there is a red variety...
- Honeysuckle bushes were starting to bloom everywhere - some in pink as well as yellow highlights.
- Well before dusk in the Fern Glen this week, I tried for better looks at Jacob's ladder and starry false Soloman's-seal.
- Golden ragwort was just on the other side of the path.
- Near the bench, the presumed Asian Solomon's seal was blooming.
- Past the fen in the acid cobble was columbine.
- At its feet was a small forest of narrow beech fern.
- Canada violet was on the other side of the path.
- Hiding among the brambles, maple-leaved viburnum was budding up.
- A fortuitous phone call caused me to linger at the edge of the fen where my first s came by to sip moisture.
- In the shrub swamp, our native limber honeysuckle vine was getting ready to bloom.
- In a quiet corner, swamp saxifrage was preparing to flower for the first time to my knowledge.
- In the farthest corner, easily dismissed as an ash seedling, wild sasparilla was offering its inconspicuous ball of flowers.
- Near the deck, truly a perennial favorite, large yellow lady's-slipper was just opening its deceitful flowers - they contain no nectar.
- Again, looking better in the daylight, gaywings was/were blooming in a number of spots in the Glen and on the trails.
- Starflower too could be found in a number of locations.
- Indian cucumber root looked like it was going to have a good year.
- I'd forgotten last week to look at the mayapple, but I did not miss the bloom.
- Choke cherry, budding up last week, was now in bloom near the kiosk.
- By the pond, golden Alexanders was just beginning.
- Across the road, the swamp azalea was already past its prime.
- Out in the back Old Hayfield, golden Alexanders was further along than in the Glen. Small, black flies were numerous on the umbels.
- Blooming by the bench at the edge of the field was common barberry, a relative of the more familiar Japanese barberry; both are alien.
- In numerous locations today, our native wild geranium could be found.
- And it was time for me to get lost.
Notes and Changes since last report
- It was 70°F, cloudy and calm at 5:00 PM on May 10, 2013.
- A very late start - not great for butterflies, but birds were singing evening songs.
- The low light too was not great for photography but...
- The warm, humid air held the spring time scents of flowering plants, the woods, the earth.
The Trails
- The lilacs at Gifford House parking lot had opened. The air carried their scent from the parking lot out over the Old Hayfield.
- By now the grass on the paths was tall enough to cut.
- In the back of the front Old Hayfield, an apple was in its glory.
- All around the edge, honeysuckle bushes were budding up.
- Along the high side of the Sedge Meadow Trail, the bizzare gall of cedar-apple rust - a fungus - was dangling from several branches.
- The path was strewn with common strawberry and dwarf cinquefoil.
- Way in the back Old Hayfield, shagbark hickory was in bloom.
- So too as ironwood.
- Pretty, but invasive burning bush would soon follow.
- Flowering dogwood had started last week and was now in profusion.
- Tucked in the dark side of the Sedge Meadow Trail was another apple with a different looking blossom.
- Even this late in the day, fresh leaves were glowing green in the view from the bluff over the Wappinger Creek.
- In the path through the flood plane, cut-leaved toothwort had been blooming.
- So too were a mustard as well as hooked- and small-flowered crowfoot, obscure members of the buttercup family.
- Near by, trout-lily was forming its fruit now.
- On the Cary Pines Trail gaywings were about to bloom!
- In the Fern Glen along the road, hobblebush was nearly done blooming. A week seems to be about all you get.
- Dainty oak fern was up in a number of patches in the Glen.
- Not so dainty Solomon's seal threatened to engulf the bench. Hummingbirds and deer both enjoy this plant.
- Star-flowered Solomon's seal was in one little patch.
- Ostrich fern was all over the place.
- Maidenhair fern was leafing out in the limestone cobble.
- Large-flowered trillium, brilliant white when new, was gracefully aging to pink.
- The air was filled with a heavy sweet fragrance; the lilacs couldn't have followed me here... It was wild blue phlox.
- In the fen, cinnamon fern fiddleheads were errupting.
- The swamp shrubs did not do well this past winter, but a few rhodora were making a valiant effort.
- Highbush blueberry seemed to be an exception.
- Lo, the gaywings were in full bloom here! So strange a flower.
- Equally strange, large yellow lady's-slipper was budding up. Our other patch has made no appearance whatsoever this year. Apparently from time to time, they simply don't come up for a year.
- Red baneberry was flowering in many places.
- Right along the road near the bridge was interrupted fern, so called because the fertile spore producing, leaflets are right in the middle of an otherwise regular, sterile frond.
- On the way out of the Glen, choke cherry was now blooming along the trail.
- The big patch of hay-scented fern took me by surprise as I rounded a bend on the way to the Old Gravel Pit. There is a dizzying quality to the sight of them.
- A last surprise for the day was a fallen branch or trunk, really, of a large white pine. I imagined the noise traveled quite a distance.
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