Butterfly Loop 4
As I near the southwestern end of Butterfly Loop, a monarch catches my eye. He circles a few times and heads straight for a small clump of common milkweed I hadn’t noticed, half-hidden behind a locust tree. He stays only for a couple of seconds before moving on, however — perhaps because the flowers are covered with various species of beetles, busy feeding and mating and clambering over each other in their excitement. It’s interesting the extent to which one can find quite distinct gatherings of insects in neighboring milkweed patches. I imagine it’s a combination of which stage the flowers are in and what other sorts of plants they adjoin, but who knows, really? Continue reading “Butterfly Loop 4”
Butterfly Loop 3
Just past the second bend on the trail, another small clump of butterfly milkweed comes into view. This one delivers on the promise of the name, with two great-spangled fritillaries and a pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos) nectaring in close proximity. Continue reading “Butterfly Loop 3”
Butterfly Loop 2
See Part 1.
Here’s what the meadow looks like from the first loop of Butterfly Loop Trail. I want to jump ahead and start with this photo today to make the simple point that, while scenic views are nice, and have a lot to do with why people like visiting or even living in the country, they don’t tell you all that much. Stand back and squint and this could be almost any field. A farmer would recognize that this hastn’t been planted or used for pasture recently, and would probably recognize the dominant “weed” as goldenrod, interspersed with non-native perennial grasses (mostly brome). But even a farmer would have to get quite close to see that it hasn’t been cultivated in a very long time, as indicated by the presence of things such as moss, polypody fern and ground pine (lycopodium). Continue reading “Butterfly Loop 2”
Butterfly Loop 1
Meet Indian hemp, A.K.A. hemp dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum), the more common — and less showy — of the two species of dogbane on the mountain. Why “dogbane”? The Latin name gives a clue: Apocynum means “toxic to dogs”… though people aren’t exactly immune, either. Why “Indian hemp”? “Apocynum cannabinum was used as a source of fiber by Native Americans, to make hunting nets, fishing lines, clothing, and twine,” the Wikipedia article informs us.
We’re standing right above the barn, at the beginning of Butterfly Loop. I aim to give y’all a guided tour of some of the commoner plants blooming in the meadow right now, if you’re up for it. This could take a while. Continue reading “Butterfly Loop 1”
Photos from the morning porch
It began innocently enough: I wanted to capture the leaf I wrote about for today’s Morning Porch update:
From what nearby October has it come, this already-red red maple leaf plastered face-down on the red porch floor and beaded with rain?
— Dave Bonta (@morningporch) June 29, 2012
But once I had the camera out, as so often happens, everything else got set aside.
Continue reading “Photos from the morning porch”
Spicebush silkmoths
It never fails to amaze me how little we know about our neighbors here. I’ve been noticing these curled-leaf cocoons on spicebushes for years, but never realized that they were most likely the work of the promethea moth, A.K.A. spicebush silkmoth. In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit that we initially mis-identified this mating pair on a spicebush next to the barn as cecropia moths — one of the three or four other species of giant silkmoths that occur on the mountain.
Continue reading “Spicebush silkmoths”
Lime kilns
I was at Canoe Creek State Park in central Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening for our local Audubon society‘s annual picnic. After supper, most of us stuck around for a stroll, which took as as far as the old lime kilns. Though the light wasn’t great, a few of my photos turned out O.K. Continue reading “Lime kilns”
Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area, 2012: life after death
The last time I visited the old-growth stand of eastern hemlocks at Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area, in central Pennsylvania’s Bald Eagle State Forest, the hemlocks were succumbing to a wooly adelgid infestation, and I figured they’d all be dead in a few years. That was early June 2007. My hiking buddy Lucy and I felt we should go back five years later and see what was taking the hemlocks’ place.
Continue reading “Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area, 2012: life after death”
Return to Bear Heaven
I last blogged about Bear Heaven in October 2006. This was my fourth visit to the highly scenic, ridgetop campground in the Monongahela National Forest.