Boch Hollow, East Trailhead

On May 23rd Joan and I returned to Boch Hollow State Nature Preserve, this time at the East Trailhead,

to tread the paths we hadn't taken on our first visit. A short gravel path led towards the woods.

Within ten minutes we saw this pair of flycatchers, variety undetermined (they're hard to tell apart except by song).

Shortly thereafter we entered the woodlands.

Due to the heavy rains since last time, the paths had more frequent and larger muddy spots. Once Joan and I got a little water over the top of our boots crossing a creek, but nothing serious. Just muddy boots.

Most birds were, as usual, unwilling to pose. This is a murky shot of a female rose-breasted grosbeak.

After descending the first ridge and crossing a small creek we arrived at the cemetery. Many stones and blocks were unreadable; this, the largest, came closest. The first photo captures its natural colors under leaf-filtered light. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

I played with the contrast, edge detection, and other filters of the GIMP -- Gnu Image Manipulation Program -- and some portions were more legible, some still not.

A wonderful solo slump block, far from any companion formation.

More fire pinks, threatened with future obscurity by higher greenery than ten days ago.

Wonderful closeup of a showy orchis, now in full bloom.

 A wood thrush.

Charming, diminutive long-spurred violet.

From the non-photosynthetic kingdom, a shelf fungus flourishing on a fallen log.

The unusual looking plant is the hairy/large-leaf waterleaf, but it's not blooming yet.

When the trail paralleled another low-lying area I spotted some movement almost on the ground. It was a bald-faced hornet! (The species is actually a yellowjacket wasp, not a true hornet.)

These eusocial beasties nest higher up in paper colonies, but this one was going round and around one of the thorns of a bush, less than a foot off the ground. We still haven't puzzled out what it was up to, unless it's chewing wood to expand the nest.

But the biggest treat by far came at the end of the hike. On the same trail we had entered by four hours before, a luna moth was snoozing on a trunk off the trail by bare inches. You must click on this one!

Joan and I count ourselves very fortunate as this large moth is nocturnally active and is in its adult stage, as here, for only 7 to 10 days. This one showed no signs of wear and tear, and must be quite young. We hope no-one, nor their dog, disturbed it the rest of the day.

Sidebar:
A disheartening behavior we commonly saw in these state nature preserves is people bringing their dogs. Pets are not allowed in the preserves, and the signs at the trailhead make this clear. The most charitable interpretation I can make is that they arrived without any knowledge of the rules, and then had a choice: go home, or break the rules. (I wouldn't condone leaving a dog in the car.) But most, I surmise, feel that their pets are so well behaved that it's OK. It is not. There are plenty of other parks where pets are welcome.

Clear Creek Sights

Joan and I spent time this late July and August hiking back and forth across Clear Creek Metro Park. Here's a snapshot of the park map. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

It's been a wet year, so there was plenty to see along the trails. At the very start of the Fern Trail, we caught the tail end of a bounty of flowers, including crimson beebalm and a tall phlox.

Viewed from the road berm.

From the other side of that patch, the American bellflower among others.

A view from the trail.

Nearby a young phoebe watched. At this time of year the birds don't sing much, nesting having been completed, but the woods are never completely silent.

An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly.

A crane-fly orchid was growing demurely in the woods. We saw a couple of these; they are inconspicuous and easy to pass by.

We also saw two putty-root orchids bearing seed pods. This plant is unusual in that its leaves deploy in early winter and disappear in the spring as its competitors for sunlight leaf out.

There were vigorous patches of pinesap poking up through the leaf litter. This plant has no chlorophyll,

but rather is a myco-heterotroph, with a parasitic relationship on fungi in the soil. Other common names for it are Dutchman's pipe and false beech-drops.

Every hike saw at least two toads, sometimes three. Here's one:

And another one!

Along the Tulip Trail there was a swath of severe wind damage. A huge gust must have driven up the side of the ridge, smashing into trees anchored in waterlogged soil. The cut ends were fresh.

 Joan inspects the wide opening in the canopy.

The frequent storms this summer left the Tulip damp.

A burst of sunlight illuminated a patch on the Hemlock Trail. We consider the Hemlock to be the most scenic trail at Clear Creek.

Fallen timber has been used to buttress this creekside section of the Hemlock. Also, a portion of the trail near the creek was being rerouted to higher ground. 

Most of the fungi we saw had been trampled or sampled by wildlife, but this specimen, at least a foot tall, was still unblemished.

Frilly skirts.

Up in the meadow Joan spotted a caterpillar of the black-waved flannel moth, a first for us.

A peek from the front.

The stinging hairs are supposed to pack quite a punch. We didn't test it.

There's a lot to be seen if you don't zoom along the trails. Including rest stops and chatting with other hikers, Joan and I manage about 1½ miles per hour.

Training @ClearCreek

During July Joan and I took several hikes at Clear Creek Metro Park to train for our next trip to the Canadian Rockies. There wasn't much we could do to prepare for the high altitudes, but we could tramp up and down the ravines and hills of the park to toughen up our legs, lungs, arms, and feet as much as possible. This post will show some of the interesting life-forms we observed along the way.

Birds can be difficult to capture on the camera, being flitty and uncooperative, but I did get some decent images. One of the best is of this female hooded warbler, who hopped around but stayed close to scold us almost continuously. She clearly had a nest nearby.

One of my favorites is the male scarlet tanager. They are common, in the sense of an abundant population, but they're often hard to spot, hanging out high in the canopy. They sound like a robin with a sore throat, as Joan puts it.

Here is juvenile scarlet tanager, still fluffy rather than sleek.

Phoebes had built a nest high in the shelter house at the Barnebey Day Use Area. They had a large brood, as you can see, which had fledged by mid-July.

It's been an extremely wet June and July. We had 23 days with rain out of 30 in June, including 19 straight. July hasn't been any better so far. Not surprisingly the park has a wild exuberance of mushrooms and other fungi. In fact, by July 12th we saw fungi on fungi -- mushrooms coated in mold and other fungal threads.

Here's a really BIG white mushroom.

Nearer the other side of the size spectrum, there's this colony of small tans.

One tree was so mossy from our extended cool, wet summer that it had true mushrooms growing out of it rather than shelf fungi.

Completely different in appearance, this violet coral fungus stopped us in our tracks.

Toads love the super-wet conditions as well. On July 12th we saw ten thumbnail-size or smaller toads on various sections of trail.

They are small and well camouflaged. If they were on the trail we herded them off to the side so they wouldn't be stepped on.

Another creature that we saw was an inch-or-less critter that looked like a very young walking stick, caught on a spider line. Joan rescued it.

One of the meadows by the creek was hosting canada lilies.

Habitat: moist meadows and wood margins. Yup.

My final snapshot is of a moth, perhaps LeConte's Haploa. It's not well camouflaged on these leaves.

In the three days since our last walk we've had rains of 4.1" (only 2¾ at the airport), 0.2", and 0.6", so I'm sure the woods are still wet.

Update 7/18/2015
We returned to Clear Creek on July 16th, after more rain and wind every day since the July 12th hike. The trails were muddier in spots, the streams ran fuller, and there were several "downers" across the trail. Fortunately they were all easy gone around or through.

Where are the Owls? And ...

Owls
You may be wondering why you haven't heard about the barred owls that nested behind our house in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Here's a photo from 2012.

There's a mystery behind the silence. At first everything appeared to be proceeding normally, if late because of our cold spring (the winter that would never end). We heard and saw the owls, and occasionally glimpsed them visiting or nearby to the sycamore that they have always nested in.

Crows were building a nest just two houses north of the owls, and we didn't expect that to work out; one year the owls trashed a crow nest that was further away. Owls and crows don't get along. But it surprised us when a pair of red-shouldered hawks evicted the crows and took over the nest -- we started seeing red-shouldered hawks here only last year. We doubted that the owls and hawks would be comfortable so close to one another.

Then events happened so rapidly that we're at a loss as to cause and effect. Before we went to the Arc of Appalachia Wildflower Pilgrimage, there was an overnight thunderstorm. Also, we were awakened dramatically early one morning by both owls blasting their entire repertoire of hoots, calls, and cries at full volume. They sounded as if they were just outside our window, certainly in front of the house, a location they've never perched in before, and they were loud enough to jar us awake over the drone of an air purifier. At some point in the next few days we noticed that the crow/hawk nest was damaged, with sticks dangling, and no hawk was sitting in it any more. Was this thunderstorm damage? A midnight raid from the owls? An egg predator?

As the days continued to pass we saw less of our owls. Then we saw a squirrel entering that cavity, a sign that the owls weren't occupying it. Had there been predation that had affected both the owl and crow/hawk nest? Had whatever supported the owl nest within the chimney of the sycamore collapsed?

We hear the owls at most once a week now, and were granted only one good viewing after the turmoil. Our wish is that they will nest in that sycamore again next year, but we can only wait and see. The red-shouldered hawks continue to visit the neighborhood, but they're obviously not nesting here either.

Bats
The annual visit from little brown bats repeated in 2013. There's a spot under the top step of the deck where, each spring, a little brown bat begins to spend the daylight hours. Check again the next day and there's two. After a while there's half a dozen or even ten. Here's the gang from 2009:

After a few weeks they move on. This year, they left May 19th. Our guess is that we're hosting a hunting camp, and when it's time to start families, a better bat roost is required. 

Phoebes
The phoebes nested on the little platform under our deck this year. They don't stay with us every year, but this is one of them. This cheers us up in the absence of the owls. In earlier years we've seen little heads poking up over the edge of the nest. This time they appear to have only one chick. Here is a long-zoom view; if you approach too closely, phoebe chicks are liable to burst out of the nest even if they aren't ready yet.

The phoebe chick fledged on May 20th, and we've seen it flying in close pursuit of a parent ... begging to be fed and learning to hunt, no doubt.

Hummingbirds
The hummingbirds were also delayed by the long, cold spring. We saw our first hummer on May 9th, the latest since we began writing it down on the calendar. The previous latest arrival was May 5th, in 2005. These aren't scientific observations, but we do write it down when we see the first one. So far we have seen only the females, which is unusual.

Chimney Swifts
Chimney swifts are also regular guests. Their chittering and swooping flight makes even the most stoic person think, That must be fun. When they dive into and burst out of our chimney, we hear a "foop!" in the living room.

Tree Frog
He wasn't a bird, but we also had a visit from a gray tree frog. There had been a loud noise we couldn't identify until Joan spotted this fellow resting on our deck railing. He's really rather small ... note the nail head to the left ... but this photo shows his inflated voice sac. (Click on the photo to enlarge).

He turned out to be very relaxed, even when I opened the door (gently) and stepped closer (slowly) to snap his portrait. He has changed into his grey phase to match the deck.

He's living somewhere in the bushes next to the deck. We often hear him, but have seen him only this once.

That's our state of the spring report!