The last of summer

Chilly morns and eves abound. The insulated rubber boots, jacket, warm mittens and friends have been broken out. I've seen my breath outside on those brisk morns. It's officially the beginning of autumn. By afternoon, the last gasps of summer warmth is present and all the warms layers are slowly removed. Pretty soon the jacket will be a requirement for the entire day.

Field work has been plentiful and I've walked many miles already along the new powerline job. Things have been relatively uneventful. There's been a giant hornet nest that was avoided at the last minute. Sorry no photo for that! Deer have plentiful and a tragi-comic event was witnessed. A seated doe had spotted me, jumped up, and ran head first into a chain link fence. She fell on the ground, but thankfully sprung back up and ran off. If she had only originally remained seated, I would have never had known she was there.

Above is probably the last turtle of the year. This poor thing had an injury to it's shell and I was very surprised to see it considering how cold it had been that morning. Below is a type of daisy I had never seen but it sure it pretty. The flowers are like a good 2 inches across and vivid purple.

Pre-wash

Today we were back out doing a rare plant survey. With all this crazy rain this summer, the fungi have really outdone themselves. I really wish I had taken that fungi ID class back in college. But I just make up names for them. Above is "orange slices" and below is "car wash sponge". Not pictured here is "french fries" and "golden french fries."

The weather held steady at hot and humid in the morning. I had heard on the weather report that thunderstorms were predicted in the afternoon. I foolishly decided that this report didn't apply to me and left the rain gear behind. Of course, the heavens opened up in the afternoon and at a point miles from the car. Thankfully we had some warning so cell phones and camera got secured in a ziploc bag. My paper field guides got stowed in a water resistent backpack and we braced for the worst. At first, the rain was caught by the trees and we remained relatively dry. Then the trees could hold no more and we started getting wet. It was refreshing in the beginning. But then the intensity increased and we quickly hit saturation. We were being powerwashed. Nevermind the thunder while we carried large metal sticks in the woods. At first, we were going to finish up our work in the rain since we only had one small spot to do. But once it got to the point we couldn't hear each other talk from a reasonable distance and the ground became very slippery, so we quickly headed back to the truck. We hunkered down for at least 15 minutes and the rain eased. We finished up (without our metal walking sticks, field guides, or camera) for the final leg and even went and did another very small site after that. Of course we stumbled upon another box turtle chowing down on some fungus so I couldn't get a pic of that happy chap.

But here's some pretty cardinal flowers we found in the morning. The pics don't do it justice. The red so vibrant it is almost florescent red.

This week I finally got some real field work. It was a plant survey which means identifying and keying out every plant you see along a route. We started out writing down everything, which was way too much work. After all we were searching for endangered plants so we just wrote down the unusual stuff. By the end of the day we still have some mystery plants, which were not in my field guide. Along the way, I spotted this dramatic Canada lily where the flowers open towards the ground. I am crouching below it to get this shot.

About mid-morning I spotted this giant bug on the back of birdman's vest. It was several inches long and I had never seen such a thing. I snapped this photo and showed it to him. We spent some time taking photos and attempting to extricate it off his vest. It mostly played dead and each touch I was expecting it to leap up and attack. I messaged one of my bosses who knows bugs and he identified it as a eyed elater.

Later we spotted the tiniest froglets I had every seen. I caught one and tried to take a photo but alas everyone came out super blurry. The froglet was about the size of a honeybee to give some perspective. When I grabbed it I held it's back legs in place and thankfully I didn't cause any damage to the little fellow.

Below is one of the mystery plants. It certainly seems easy enough to key out. It just wasn't in the field guide.

The big downer of the day was the constant mosquitos swarms. Nothing was going to stop them and I have the bites on my arms and face to show for. I also found two ground bees and hornets nests. Thankfully I spotted them in time and the occupants were relatively relaxed. I'm sure come next month they won't be so relaxed.

Ehn!

There's only a couple more weeks of turtling. I spent a good chunk of sunday out and about. I found two super rare turtles, so that always makes it a good turtling day. The feisty one, pictured here, shows why it's hard to take notes, measure the turtle, and hold the turtle. Note the claws of the back legs digging into my fingers and the "ehn!" expression.

Here's an abandoned church that I often pass while turtling. It has a graveyard, which I'm sure is just as interesting. One day I'll have to come back to further investigate. Check out the large boulder blocking the basement entrance.
The dame's rocket is in full bloom. I always love watching the cycle of wildflowers and shrubs that go throughout the seasons. What I don't love is the cycle of annoying bugs. Today my head was constantly being orbited by some blackflies.

Please direct the 'cane over here please!

Not sure if the local peeps have noticed, but we need rain like something fierce. Leaves are changing color, wilting, and falling over and it's not fall yet. The soil is powder, which makes work real hard. Plus summer has been back with a vengence. It's hot and humid. I could see people's breaths this morning as they talked and it's not because it's very cold out.

Late summer flowers are out. Here's white wood aster, which has been more increasingly rare.

Here's some goldenrod. It's not ragweed contrary to my mother says. She singlehandedly removed all goldenrod from their yard and surrounding area, because my mother was convinced it was some sort of allergy weed. It's not! Poor goldenrod!

Yum!

I continued my search for Cashew this weekend. No luck so far but I've seen a bunch of smaller painted turtles so she has some good company. The blueberries and huckleberries are ripe so I sampled a bunch. Yum! The swamp azaleas are blooming and are quite fragrant.
The day lilies are also blooming. Once they get started in a spot, the can take over the whole place and form a sea of lilies.

The muskrats have been quite visible although from a distance or for such a short time a good shot is impossible. It's comical to see them jump into a mud pit and watch the bog quake and shimmy when they are burrowing through.

Intermission

I had my father come take a look at the leaking water heater on Monday. I thought that he would do a more thorough investigation since I have no idea what I'm doing. But it turns out he put minimal effort into it and just ordered a new one. Hopefully it's the one I picked out and that the installation is a success tomorrow. My dad also didn't seem concerned about a new one fitting but I'm worried since the model I have is a short one. We'll see!
No field work is scheduled for this week for some reason. So I'm posting some random pics I took in the spring. I was trying to capture the way the light flowers look in the moonlight. But alas, you'll mostly have to use your imagination. The fireflies are out. I just noticed them this weekend. Summer sure is here.
I was going through my closet trying to get rid of things when I noticed a great shadow on the window screen. Again the pic does not justice to the short lived window screen mural.

Baby-fest continues

We were turtling today. Again, no turtles for me. But that's fine. I have my own collection of frogs for my entertainment. We got to see another fawn and before I could pet it, it took off. Then my newest co-worker stumbled upon this baby screech owl (above). He scared off the parents and the baby was left alone. Baby was snapping its beak, pooping, and making weird baby screechy noises. Very cute. We were like the paparazzi below it. Five different cameras were all going off.

We then ventured off to a turtle control site. It's a place where there are known records for this rare turtle. It was tough to find it, but I managed to find the spot and called everyone over. It lead a series of bottomless pit areas. Everyone "took a drink" at some point. Y'know when you overtop your boot. It was real tough walking in this muck. You take one step and sink down...possibly endless unless you find a lucky rock. Then you attempt to extract the back foot by wiggling it around to loosen it. Kind of like walking in peanut butter or very thick choco pudding. Then attempting to find our way back to the car, we scared a robin's nest and the two chicks jumped out of the nest. They can't fly yet so we scooped them up and replaced them. Here's my chick I rescued..all squeaking and upset. Although it's looking pretty serene in this pic.


If you haven't noticed, a bunch of flowers are out in bloom. It's great. The autumn olive shrubs are finishing up. But they give the air a strawberry marshmallow smell. It's awesome.

spring rocks

I can't help but notice all the great flowers blooming. You got cherry, daffodils, forsythia, and magnolia rocking out. But you also have the small guys in the woods creating carpets of color....lesser celandine, spring beauty, and ground ivy. Yeah sure the yellow ones in this pic are an invasive weed but as far as invasive plants go, they sure are nice and they don't have thorns.

Love is also in the air for my amphibian friends. We stumbled upon this toad porn the first turtling outing last week. Sometimes the guys get a little too demanding and end up drowing their ladies. We found their eggs too which looked like a necklace. So there's been a lot of lovin' going on in that puddle.