Although I’m sure many of you are waiting as eagerly for the first flower buds, returning migrant birds, and other signs of spring as I am, I do still appreciate some of the nature observations that are just plain easier in the winter. Galls are certainly one of them. With no leaves on trees and shrubs, any galls remaining on woody stems are easily visible. Galls come in a variety of unique shapes and sizes; I’ve written about a number…
When you think of nature in winter, you might think of snow, bare trees, and cold temperatures. If you’ve ever visited the Cape Cod Canal during the winter, you might think of eiders. Few people, however, would say “insects” as their first thought. While many insects are dormant through the winter, there are some who like to buck the trend. The winter firefly (Ellychnia corrusca) is one of these. They belong to the family Lampyridae, which includes fireflies and lightening…
I’ve had a lot of white-tailed deer around my recent trail camera placement. In fact, after almost a month, with the exception of a couple gray squirrels that scampered by, the deer have been my only visitors. Having placed the camera down by the edge of a river, I’d hoped to get more animals passing by to have a drink. The deer, however, have certainly kept me entertained. They’ve come by singly or in groups as large as 5. Although…
Beech bark disease causes defects and mortality in American beech trees. In North America, this disease is tied to a combined effect of fungi and insect attackers. The introduced beech scale insect, Cryptococcus fagisuga, begins the cycle by feeding on the bark of a beech tree. Feeding activities of the scale insects create tiny wounds such that the tree becomes susceptible to two different species of Neonectria fungus: N. faginata and N. ditissima. Once the bark is wounded by the scale insect,…
Although most people are deep in a Christmas planning mode right now, we’ve just finished up a late fall pumpkin party in our backyard. What do you do with your old Halloween pumpkins? Typically we just toss them in our compost bin, but this year after cutting the pumpkin in half to expose the seeds inside, we set it out in our back woods and trained our trail camera on it to see who would come to partake. Over a…
On a recent walk at Mass Audubon’s Tidmarsh Sanctuary, I noticed something out of the ordinary attached to the stem of a shrub a little ways off the trail. It sort of resembled a brown dried leaf, but there was something just different enough about it that it caught my attention. Closer inspection revealed that it was a cocoon of some sort. I immediately had two conflicting thoughts: 1) I want to cut it open so I can see what’s…
Here in late November, we are solidly into autumn. The temperature has dropped, the days are getting short, most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and shrubs, and the predominant landscape colors are brown and gray. But lichens, clubmosses, and some ferns remain green year round, providing splashes of vivid green throughout the landscape. One such fern is the aptly named evergreen wood fern (Dryopteris intermedia), which is indeed green year-round in areas of mild winters, such as…
Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) is a climbing deciduous woody vine that thrives in disturbed habitats (e.g., roadsides, forest edges, riverbanks, etc.). This plant can grow rapidly, shading out and/or strangling native plants, including mature trees. In the fall and winter, after the leaves have fallen away from the bittersweet vines and the surrounding vegetation, the bright three-sectioned red-orange fruits and their yellow outer “husks” can draw your attention from quite a distance. As the capsules dry, they hinge open, revealing…
Friday concluded our trip north, so this post will be the last in the Nature Notes from the North Woods series. It had been far too long since I’d been up in the White Mountains, and I already can’t wait to go back. I hope you enjoy the final installment of photos and notes from Maine.
After a few days in the Pittsburg, NH area (see the previous blog post for Pittsburg area photos: Part 1) we moved onto Bethel, ME. Since arriving on Friday evening, we’ve done a ton of hiking, including trails in Grafton Notch State Park and Evans Notch in the White Mountain National Forest. Some brief photo highlights from the last few days are below.