A Stroll on the Peninsula

Ahhhh - the temp is once more back to something resembling normal. Still, just so we don't get too cocky, it remains quite humid.

Because the weather was so much improved, I decided to hit the trails. It's been quite some time since I walked the Peninsula Trail, so that was my destination...

...by way of the parking lot (I had to get my tripod from the car). While in the parking lot, I decided to photograph a couple of the plants in the planter.

First up, we have common mullein (Verbascum thapsis). Not native, this tall spike of a plant is found in many of our "waste" areas. This one volunteered itself in our planter.


A syrphid fly was busily eating pollen.



A butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) also volunteered here. It is one of my favorite plants, probably because of its brilliant orange color.



The following are random images from various parts of the trails, in no particular order.

Polypody Fern

Shinleaf Pyrola (P. elliptica)

Rattlenake Plantain was just getting started.

I believe it's Downy Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera pubescens).

Although the leaves seem rather less decorative than usual.

St. Johnswort was a surprise, but it found a gap in

the trees and was doing very well.

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentails) is only juuuust starting to bloom.

Dewdrop (Dalibarda repens) was blooming in profusion.

The roof of the gazebo is a hotbed of lichens!

Lichens on a rock.

Is this a rather revolting-looking mess or what? It looks like something vomited on the rock. They are, I believe, lichens, though.

It was a great day for mushrooms, too. We've had 3/4" of rain in the last two nights, so the mushrooms are thriving. My mushroom book is at home, though, so ID is limited until I get a chance to look 'em up.

Although I'm pretty sure these are lacquered polypores.

There was a whole line of them next to the trail.

I suspect they are growing on the decayed remains of a log.

I loved the shape of this one.

Had to take it's picutre twice!

And this one was just so colorful!

Did someone have a snack?

And another snack?

This is probably an amanita. Such a beautiful yellow.

And this is why many mushrooms look mangled.

It's a regular slugfest under there!

These little yellow fungi were just pushing out of the ground.

Next week I'll go out on the Sucker Brook and Sage Trails and see what's blooming/growing there.

Wee Newt

I found this little guy creeping across the driveway this morning. Those are centimeters he's sitting on, and those gigantic pinkish things in the background are my fingers. This has got to be the tiniest red eft I've ever found.

Red efts are the terrestrial stage of the red-spotted, or eastern, newt (Notophthalmus viridescens), one of our native salamanders. They remain in this juvenile stage for two to seven years, after which they return to the water, change into adults, and set about reproducing. This second change is what sets them apart from most other salamanders, which change once, from larva to adult. When the eft returns to the water, it developes a thinner and less toxic skin, regrows tailfins, and must revert to suction-type feeding.

A question I'm often asked is "what is the difference between a salamander and a newt?" - and the answer I give is that all newts are salamanders, but not all salamanders are newts; in other words, newts are a subgroup of salamanders. The physiological differences are small and don't apply to every case. Newts in general have less-slimy skin, and most must return to the water to reproduce. There may also be greater differences between the outer appearances of the sexes with newts than with salamanders, and newts may display more elaborate courtship behaviors.

A Perfect Adirondack Day

My friend Woodswalker invited me for a paddle yesterday at her personal paradise - a privately owned lake in the eastern Adirondacks (she doesn't own it - it's held by a church group). We met at 9 AM, just as the sun was burning off the fog. Spider webs in numbers uncountable graced the wetland near the entrance to the property.

The fog cleared in next to no time while I got the grand tour of cabins and the immediate property. Being nature nuts, we were both drawn to the wildlife:

Mr. Toad (or it could've been a Ms. Toad - I didn't see the enlarged "thumbs" that are usually associated with males) put up with our photography obsession for quite a while,

but even he eventually tired of the attention and left for less crowded environs.

We launched our boats and headed out along the shoreline, paddling widdershins.

The air was mild, the sky blue with but a few wispy clouds, and the colors were just starting to change in the trees. A more perfect day couldn't have been had if we had placed an order.

The highlight of the paddle was a pair of loons - an adult and a juvenile. As soon as we saw them we stopped paddling so as not to disturb them. They seemed completely unfazed by our presence and continued fishing all around our boats.

The water on this lake is so clear that when the juvenile dove and swam underwater along the side of my boat I could see its every stroke. Very cool.

I missed the money shot, though, when the adult stood up and shook its wings - I was busy repositioning my canoe when the bird rose and flapped. I did, however, get a shot of the juvenile with a small fish in its beak.

The lake has two wetlands that we poked around, each with old abandoned beaver lodges. We followed a channel into the depths of one of the wetlands. I wonder if it was an old beaver channel.

The waterlilies were still in bloom, which sort of surprised me. I tend to think of them as flowers of July and August.

One of the more puzzling things we encountered were these little green balls.

There were hundreds of them floating in the water of one of the wetlands (they didn't photograph well in the water).

They were soft and squishy, and came in varied sizes, from teeny tiny to almost a centimeter in diameter. Does anyone know what they might be?

UPDATE: My paddling buddy got an ID confirmation on the Little Green Balls. Soon after I published this post, my friend Evelyn emailed me that a friend of her's thought they were Nostoc, and then later ammended that to Volvox. Well, this just goes to show you should never change your answer; they are Nostoc, a cyanobacteria. For Jackie's excellent write-up, visit her blog at http://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2009/09/green-ball-mystery-solved.html.

We found a couple types of burreed. This one reminded me of medieval maces.

These wetland plants have triangular stems filled with a spongy pith (as seen in this cross-section); the are very much like the leaves of cattails.

By 1:00 the wind had picked up, almost blowing whitecaps up on the lake's surface. We headed back towards the beach and took out our boats. It was a delightful way to spend a day - next time I will have to clear my calendar for the whole day so we can linger longer.

Thanks for the invite, Jackie!