FIrst Full Day of Summer

The eastern phoebes we found in that canoe a couple of weeks ago aren’t there any more. I don’t know if they met an ill end or if they have fledged and gone, but in their place we found these today:

Another Eastern Phoebe clutch

I took a lap around my woods to see if the dewdrops had bloomed yet. A few had!

Dewdrop (Dalibarda repens)

The wintergreen is still bearing last year’s berries. They seem to get bigger just before they drop. This one was about 50% larger (in diameter) than they are in the fall.

Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)

I also found that the partridge berry was in bloom…

Partridge berry (Mitchella repens)

…as was the whorled loosestrife…

Whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia)

…and the cow wheat.

Cow wheat (Melampyrum lineare)

David and I took Penny down to Sandogardy Pond. I wanted to see if the sheep laurel was in bloom. It was. This might be the best shot I’ve ever gotten of it.

Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia)

The beach at the pond was covered with these guys:

Pickerel frog (Rana palustris)

I think they are pickerel frogs, but it could also be some other species. They were so small that David thought they were insects at first glance. I knew better because I’ve seen them here before. They were only about a quarter inch long, and as we walked along the beach they were jumping out of the way. There were thousands of them.

 

Three-legged Frog

Today I took Penny down to Sandogardy Pond. Since I have been bike riding of late rather than walking, she hasn’t had a chance to come along (it’s hard to take a dog on a bike ride).

When we got there, it was a tad crowded, with eight or ten people swimming in the pond and another dozen or more sitting on lawn chairs on the beach. Kids were immediately drawn to Penny, and Penny made it clear to them that she would like them to throw sticks. So they did. Meanwhile, I took pictures of some of the flowers blooming at the water’s edge.

Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata)

I found some Indian tobacco growing all up and down the beach. I posted a shot of some of this yesterday, but I think this one is better. Another lobelia is water lobelia (L. dortmanna).

Water lobelia (L. dortmanna)

I think this is the prettiest lobelia. They are somewhat more difficult to photograph, as they grow out in the water complicating the use of my tiny tripod, and there’s not a lot of flower there making it hard for the camera to find what to focus on. But this photo came out pretty nice.

Pretty soon Penny was trying to get me to throw sticks instead of the kids (they were throwing them into deep water where Penny has a hard time retrieving them). The kids followed and began peppering me with questions.

“Whatcha doin’?”
“What kind of plant is this?”
“Are you taking pictures of frogs?”
“Do you want me to catch one for you?”

I didn’t want them to catch any frogs, but was powerless to stop them. They only caught one, and it was an unusual one.

Pickerel Frog (Rana palustris)

No telling where its fourth leg went. My guess is that it just never developed (I was going to say that it was born without it, but duh – all frogs are born without legs).

Penny was getting pretty tired, and the kids kept throwing sticks for her. She needed to rest, but wouldn’t as long as there were willing stick throwers about. I ended up calling her away so she could lie down and drink.

The kids tried to follow as we set out down the trail along Little Cohas Brook, but their parents called them back. We went down to the bridge (where the trail crosses the creek) and I spotted what I initially thought was a stand of Joe Pye weed. I went in for a closer look.

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

Nope. It was swamp milkweed (Asclepias incaranta), and it had a large contingent of butterflies. Nice. This is a milkweed I don’t see that often.

Penny followed me into the mud for a look at the milkweed, but unlike me, she was not careful to keep her feet clean. So we went back to the pond. I threw a stick in the water to get her to go in and wash some of that off. It worked, and she was soon presentable again. Then we headed back to the house.

 

Plants, Animals, and in Between

Today I was putzing around in my woods looking at some of the blueberry plants when the thought occurred to me that some of the early blueberries might be ripe by now. So I went to a small patch that always blooms early.

Ripe blueberry

Yup! Ate that one and two others. This little patch is at the base of a tree at the edge of the yard. It gets more sun than the ones growing in the woods, and I imagine that’s why it blooms and ripens earlier than its sylvan counterparts.

So that’s a plant.

Not far from the early blueberries I spotted a grasshopper of some sort.

Animal

I don’t know the species or the genus. I could look up the order I’m sure, but I just don’t have it in me tonight.

As I walked through the yard, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. It was this pickerel frog (Rana palustris).

Pickerel frog (Rana palustris)

This guy didn’t want anything to do with me, but I continued to chase him down anyhow. I suppose that makes me a paparazzi. For frogs. As I persisted in my efforts to capture his (or her) likeness, I would move the long grass out of the way, and as my hand approached, the frog would jump away. I finally approached with my camera instead of with my hand, and the frog didn’t seem to care about that. It’s as if it were saying, “Oh! You’re a photographer! You should have said so!”

I usually see one or two of these each year, so I’ve met my quota now. I will report this sighting on a site run by Fish & Game (they are interested in that sort of thing).

So now that I have given you a plant and two animals, we shall shoot for the middle ground – slime mold!

Slime mold!

This is a weird life form. Scientists used to classify it as a fungi, but unlike a fungi, it moves. It also seems to exhibit simple brainlike functions. For example, if you divide this stuff into multiple clumps (much as this one is divided into three already), the clumps will find one another again and recombine. And get this quote from Wikipedia:

Studies on Physarum have even shown an ability to learn and predict periodic unfavorable conditions in laboratory experiments.

Awesome!

 

Moon Wasp

Moon Wasp

This evening I walked the trail through my wood lot. As I emerged from the forest, I spotted a dead wasp, head-down in a white pine sapling. It looks like she was mooning someone when she expired.

There were several ripe blackberries near the mooning wasp, and I ate several handfuls before deciding to capture one that was growing near the ground:

Ripe and juicy

Incidentally, I have a new favorite way to eat these. I put about a half cup of vanilla ice cream in a bowl and then add about a cup of blackberries. Then I cover the whole thing with some Orange Crush dessert topping (basically, a syrup). Man… that is good. I had another bowl of that tonight. My hope is that since the bulk of this is fresh blackberries, it’s basically good for me (sugar from the ice cream and syrup aside).

As I made my way through the yard to check out the catchment pond, this little pickerel frog leaped out of my path.

Pickerel Frog (Rana palustris)

I think this is the first one of these I’ve seen this summer.
They aren’t nearly as common as American toads, green frogs, bullfrogs, wood frogs, or spring peepers. Those six species are the only frogs I’ve seen on my property.

 

Pickerel Frog

Today as I was wandering about the yard I scared up a Pickerel Frog (Rana palustris).

Pickerel Frog (Rana palustris)

Even though Fish & Game says that these frogs are widespread, this is only the second third one I’ve ever seen. Frogs are actually a lot less common this year than they have been in the past few. We’ve had less rain than usual, so I suppose it must be a factor. I’m sure that’s why my bulfrog/green frog population in the catchment pond is so low.

The name Rana palustris means “frog: swampy.” Maybe if I spent more time in swamps I’d see them more often than once every three years.

This particular specimen did not want to hold still long enough for me to get a good shot. I’m glad I took this one even though the photo was sure to be sub-optimal (frog is obscured by the grass, etc), but I did it because I thought it might be my only shot – and it was. Shortly after this one, it disappeared into the grass (which desperately needs a good mowing) and I was unable to find him again.

 

Still Under the Weather

Sometime early this week, I managed to inhale a cloud of sawdust. Some of it lodged in my sinus, and that has led to a nasty sinus infection. For me, a sinus infection is always caused by a foreign particle getting lodged in the snoot.

It was raining all morning and most of the afternoon today. I felt like today would have been a great day for me to star in a flu remedy commercial. I could have donned my raincoat and walked out into the maelstrom heading for the drug store to buy some Floobegone®. I certainly felt like the guys in the flu med commercials.

Instead, this evening I bought a neti pot. In case you don’t know what one is, it looks like a little teapot, but you fill it with a warm saline solution and pour it into the nasal cavity. Eww. But that seems like exactly the right treatment for dislodging a particle of sawdust. I have self-treated twice now, and I’m already feeling a bit better. Maybe this will do the trick.

Sorry for a second gross post in a row, but you’re going to get a little of that here.

In other grossness, I found a half-decayed pickerel frog (Rana palustris) in the backyard today. Of course I did take a picture, but I’ll spare you and not post it here. This is only the second one of these I’ve seen (not counting any times I may have seen one in the past and not known what it was or have sufficient curiosity to find out). Instead, I’ll post a picture of the one I saw last year (which was alive and well).

Pickerel Frog