This morning I spent a couple hours observing the plants, birds and insects along the banks of Red Brook in the Lyman Reserve in Plymouth. Normally, when I see something interesting I take a picture or two and continue on my walk, but today I took the extra time to sit and journal my observations. I spent most of my time with two plants in particular: Monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) and common blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis). The first, monkey flower, which…
Wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria) is a low shrub-like herbaceous perennial, which grows 2 to 3 feet high and has small (approximately a half inch long) yellow pea-like flowers. The gray-green leaves are somewhat clover-like and trifoliate (divided into three leaflets). Perhaps the most widespread Baptisia species in the eastern United States, it occurs in sandy dry areas, open woods and fields from New England to Florida and west to Minnesota. The flowers bloom July through September and are just now…
I’ve always toyed with the idea of someday hiking the entire 2,185-mile Appalachian Trail (A.T.) as a thru-hike, but life, a job and various other responsibilities have accumulated such that taking off for the required ~6 months to complete the trek no longer seemed feasible. However, it occurred to me this year that I could still hike the A.T. – I just needed to do it in pieces, referred to as section-hiking. Given that I live on Cape Cod, the…
Despite the white, latex-like sap, from which their name derives, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is a delicious wild edible. Found in fields, along roadsides and other open areas, common milkweed is native to almost all of New England. It typically grows 3 to 4 feet tall, on stout straight stems, with thick, broad, opposite leaves and is topped with round, slightly drooping clusters of pinkish-purple flowers. Before the flower buds bloom, they somewhat resemble pinkish-green heads of broccoli. In bloom,…
While adult American Robins (Turdus migratorius) may be a common sight, their nests are often tucked away in thickets and hard to access areas. Today, however, while performing a wetland delineation for work, I stumbled across this nest. The female robin chooses the nest site and is primarily responsible for building the nest itself, although males will help to collect nest materials. Nests are typically situated on one or more horizontal branches hidden in or just below a layer of…
While hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains this weekend, I explored half a dozen waterfalls. These ranged from the 10 foot high Lower Falls of the Swift River along the Kancamagus Highway to larger falls, such as Winneweta Falls (40 feet) and Arethusa Falls (176 ft – the highest single drop waterfall in New Hampshire). At each location, in addition to the beauty of the falls themselves, I was surprised and delighted by the number of butterflies flitting about. The…
While walking along Nauset spit in Orleans, I encountered this Northern Moon Snail (Lunatia heros) that had been caught out on the sand as the tide retreated. It was just starting to dig down into the wet sand to keep from drying out, as well as to avoid predators, such as gulls. Moon snails also burrow to find their prey: bivalves. Since many clams are found more than 6 inches below the surface, moon snails must burrow to find them….
Until this weekend, I hadn’t seen mole crabs (Emerita talpoida) since I was a child. The lack of sightings was less to do with an absence of the crabs and more to do with the fact that I no longer dig holes and build sandcastles at the beach. My boyfriend and I were discussing these interesting little crabs as we walked down the beach yesterday and he wanted to see one. My suggestion: dig a hole in the wet sand….
Painted turtles are one of the most widespread turtles in the North America, and are fairly common throughout Massachusetts. They prefer shallow bodies of water that offer places to haul out and bask in the sun, such as exposed rocks or fallen, partially submerged logs. They have a rather smooth shell, with red patterns along the outer edge, a yellow spot (sometimes elongated) behind their eye, and yellow stripes on their head and neck. There is a useful identification sheet…
I bet you’re thinking, “Newt? It just looks like a salamander.” Physically, newts lack the side grooves typically found along most salamanders’ bodies. Taxonomically, all salamanders are in the family Salamandridae, while newts fall within a subfamily to that: Pleurodelinae. In other words, all newts are salamanders, but not all salamanders are newts. The red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus v. viridescens) is one of four sub-species of the eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens), and is the only sub-species found in New England. During…