Lotus Position

What a beautiful day we had on Sunday - another in a serious of glorious days.  Possible rain was in the forecast, but it never materialized, which was terrific because I had a paddle planned with GREAT, the Grand River Environmental Action Team.  Every month from April through October they sponsor a paddle on one of the waterways in south central Michigan.  Sunday's trip was to Kent Lake, a man-made lake north of Ann Arbor, where the Huron River was dammed.  The lake is located in a very popular county park:  Kensington Park.  And the big draw...well, you'll see it in a moment.

Over 20 boats set out from the boat launch - canoes and kayaks both.  Other water vessels on the lake included sailboats, motor boats, pontoon boats and paddle boards, but the lake is big enough (1200 ac) that we were not crowded.

Are those vultures in the tree?

Nope - they are cormorants.  Apparently this is their place - every year these birds hang out on this tiny island, perched in this dead tree and on other branches around the back side of the island.  They were fairly oblivious to our group, eying us on occasion, but mostly getting on with their preening and sunbathing.

In the far distance you can see our destination:  that low band of light green.

Not the swan...

but the lotuses!  American lotus - a rare plant in Michigan, it is much more common further south.  This patch appeared suddenly in this lake about seven or eight years ago.  No one knows for sure how the first plants arrived, but it could've been via people or wildlife, people, of course, being the most likely route.

Just how big are the flowers?  Take a look below!

The large leaves stand upwards of two feet above the water, and the colony is quite dense.

The lotus was once an important food plant to the native peoples, who ate both the seeds and the roots.

You might recognize the center of the flower, and the dried pod below, from dried flower arrangements. 

I shook out some seeds and will chuck 'em in the pod at work to see if they will grow.

I managed to paddle through the pads and get up close to many of the flowers.  They are just spectacular.

One of the really amazing things about the lotus is the leaves.  The surface of the leaf has microscopic structures that work to repel water.  It is so efficient at this that scientists are studying these structures to see how they can be copied for creating clothing that repels water.  I tried to shoot some video of the water rolling around on the leaf - not easy to do in a boat, holding the camera in one hand and manipulating the water on the leaf with the other, without tipping over.  It looks like mercury!  Remember those days when we were kids and someone would get a hold of a dollop of mercury and you'd watch it roll around on your hand or desk?  Water on a lotus leaf is much safer.

By the time I finished photographing the lotuses, the rest of the group had paddled on.  So, I took my time to tour the various coves around the islands.  I saw a number of turtles out sunning on the logs.  Most were map turtles - a new turtle species in the wild for me.

Typical of most turtles, they didn't hang around very long once they were aware of the approaching boat.

Three turtles and a duck.  Can you see all three turtles?  I only saw the big map turtle when I took the photo.  It promptly dove into the water, and then I saw the soft shelled turtle on the back end of the log.  The third turtle, which is in the middle and has its tail facing the camera - I didn't even see until I looked at the photos later that evening.

And this poor little green heron (or green backed heron, depending on your field guide)!  I saw him first in the shadows of one island and followed him for 15 or more minutes, drifting ever closer to get a photo.  He finally flew across the shallow water to another log, this time in the sunshine.  If you zoom in on the photo, you can see he's caught a damselfly.

And here he is swallowing it. Gulp! 

Shortly thereafter he turned his back and walked down the submerged log - just to get away from me.  I let him go.

All too soon it was time to head back.  The folks from GREAT had loaded most of the borrower boats back on the trailers and were ready to go.  We bid them all farewell and thanked them for the opportunity to come out to Kent Lake and see the lotuses in bloom.

There were lots of buds on the plants, so if you'd like to go out and see them for yourself, there is plenty of time to do so.  It's well worth the trip to see these glorious flowers.

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!

Botanizing by Boat

For part of my vacation, I went paddling with my botany buddy Jackie and her friend Sue along Jackie's favorite part of the Hudson River in Glens Falls.

To really appreciate a paddle, one should take time to cruise the river (lake or pond) banks in slow motion, for only then can one really see the life along the river (lake or pond). In this case, it was the plant life. Jackie has been keeping track of what's blooming here, and when, for about fifteen years! Her knowledge of the local flora is astonishing; she practically knows each individual plant. You can tell, when you go botanizing with her, that she views these plants as long-time friends, and when one turns up missing, the loss is as palpable as it is for the loss of any human friend.


Some of the plants we encountered are old favories, like pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

and Common arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia)

while others were entirely new for me:

Monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) - I love the name! Someone must've thought the flower looked like a monkey's face. Hm.



Golden hedge hyssop (Gratiola aurea) - a delightful little mat of a plant, growing along rocks at the water's edge. The golden trumpets really glow in the sunshine. Jackie's also seen clammy hedge hyssop (I love that name) along the river, but we didn't see any today.



Sweetflag, or calamus (Acorus calamus) - there are two patches of this plant growing along the river. Many native people used the plant for medicianl purposes. Jackie had me taste the flower head (that green spikey thing) - it has a definite piney taste to it. Not great, but then not as bad as some medicines I've had to choke down.

Jackie should be commended for the lengths to which she will go to eradicate invasives like purple loosestrife!


Two trees grow along here that seem out of place this far north:

Black Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica)


and Sassafrass (Sassafrass albidum).

Thanks to some interesting geology and its affect on local microclimate, these typically more southern trees are able to survive along the river's banks. Unfortunately, the local beavers have for some reason taken exception to the tupelos and have made it their personal mission to girdle just about every single one! This is a shame, for they are beautiful trees, especially in the fall when their leaves burst into a flaming scarlet unmatched by any of our other native trees.

I was fascinated by the enormous snails we saw inhabiting just about every underwater rock and boulder in the still waters of the river's bays! There were so many of them (hundreds and hundreds...possibly thousands) that I began to wonder if they are an introduced species. Hm. Does anyone know?

We also encountered some skittish dragon- and damselflies.

This dragonfly may be a Blue Corporal (Libellula deplanata).

I think this one is a Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa).

These might be Azure Bluets, members of the Pond Damselfly Family (Coenagrionidae).

It is difficult to photograph insects from a boat because both you and the insects are moving!

Oh, these are all shots from my new camera! I bought a Nikon D90 mere minutes before we started this canoe trip and I have been playing with it while on vacation these last two weeks. I need a lot of practice getting the light balance right. And because it doesn't have mostly plastic parts, it is a heavy camera, and therefore holding it still is a bit more difficult than it is with lighter cameras. Practice, practice, practice!

A Perfect Day

Ah, the rigors of the job: I had to lead a canoe paddle on Rich Lake today. The sun was out, the sky was blue, a few puffy clouds blew about on the wind. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.



We followed a flotilla of Canada geese, and watched as a loon made a perfect landing.


Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) was only juuuust starting to bloom - this was the only one we saw.
A handful of swamp candles were barely holding their heads above the water and were not photogenic. Instead, we had a distant view of some swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata).


Swamp roses (Rosa palustris) had us scratching our heads for a few moments. Detailed Correction: When Terry and I were looking at this plant there in the wetland, my first reaction was "rose," but as I looked at the leaves, my reaction became "cinquefoil." I didn't have my field guide with me, so we hemmed and hawed and finally went with rose. I should've looked it up before posting it, but my friend Jackie caught the mistake. It is indeed Marsh Cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris) - the purple flowerheads should've been the big clue. Thanks for the heads-up, Jackie!

We took a leisurely paddle through the wetland,


picked up a few passengers,


and then headed down the Outlet.




Other floral treasures included fragrant white water lily (Nymphaea odorata),



spatterdock (Nuphar variegatum) with yellow center,

spatterdock with red center,


water smartweed (Polygonum amphibium),


and, the best find of the day, large cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon).


We also had some other nifty finds, but getting photos from a moving boat was impossible! They included the flowers of native floating heart (Nymphoides cordata), flowers on the rushes (I don't know what species), and newly emerged damselflies clinging to said rushes. Dragonflies and damselflies, of all colors and styles, flitted about, singly and in pairs (I tried really hard to get a shot of an ebony jewelwing, one of my favorites, but it just wouldn't land and stay put in one place long enough). Spider webs clung to vegetation, and I even saw one spider making good headway across the water. We saw fish (small and smaller), and fish nests. Overhead we heard and saw a pair of broadwinged hawks catching some updrafts, and in the woods we heard wood peewees, winter wrens, song sparrows, black-throated blue warblers, and a blue-headed vireo.

Moquitoes? Nil. Blackflies? Nada. Deerflies? Only a few in the Outlet.

Overall, a perfect day. (Until I got home, that is, and found the massive sunburn on my legs!)