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Rain moved in late Monday night and stayed around until mid morning Tuesday, bringing a total of six tenths of an inch.  Not enough to change our drought status, but it did clean the dust off of the plants.  It was also enough to block my satellite signal and deprive me of internet access, so yesterday’s post never made it out.  Rural sometimes means you’re out of touch.  I took a walk in the last of the early morning drizzle to enjoy seeing things while they were wet.

Moles took advantage of the temporarily moistened ground.  Their activities are severely restricted when the ground is super dry.

Wind accompanied the last of the rain and brought down several leaves.  Black Walnuts are quickly losing their leaves and will soon be bare.  I guess I did my trail mowing at just the right time.

I found this handsome Eastern Box Turtle near the creek.  Rain brings out many of the turtle’s favorite food items, so turtles go on the hunt when things are wet.  I don’t think the amount or timing of this rain did much to improve the chances of the turtle finding a meal.  The rain wasn’t enough to soak through the dried leaves on the forest floor and wasn’t enough to bring out the slugs and earthworms.

A few temporary pools formed in the creek.  These pools are used by a wide variety of animal species.  The absence of birds along the creek is especially noticeable when these pools disappear. 

By the time I had worked my way around to the top of the hill, the last of the rain clouds moved past and blue sky appeared.  The long range forecast doesn’t give much promise of rain in the near future, so I guess I’ll continue to watch the drought progress for a while longer.

The rain was enough to fill all of my tubs.  I’m currently using four tubs to catch runoff water from the roof.  This has been enough for me to water plants and still leave plenty of water for permanent aquatic residents of the tubs.

Gray Treefrog tadpoles of all sizes can be found in the tubs.  Most of these will not transform into froglets before cold weather begins.  The adult frogs commonly lay eggs up until early September, so it’s normal to lose those last few batches of tadpoles.  An extended warm season through fall would give many of those tadpoles a chance to mature and leave the water before winter.  Most species will take every opportunity to increase their population size and loss of a few offspring is an expected occurrence. 

Annual Mowing of the Woodland Trail

I took DR Brush out to complete the annual mowing of the woodland trail system.  This is the DR’s 20^th year performing valuable assistance in the management of Blue Jay Barrens.  The mower is one of the few things that I have purchased in my life that has actually outperformed the advertising hype.

I always mow the woodland trail just prior to the start of leaf fall.  This allows the trail to be covered by a thick layer of leaves that offers protection against erosion during the winter.  It also offers a source of enjoyment to those people who delight in crunching through newly dried autumn leaves.

Sometimes it’s hard to pick out the path of the trail through the trees.  A clue is the border of logs, branches and sticks that accumulate just off the edge of the trail.  I’m constantly flipping these obstructions out of my way as I walk.  They have been so numerous along some sections that trail curbs are beginning to form.

The trail shows up quite well in those sections of the woods where Diarrhena Grass is the primary ground cover.  The grass is most likely to take hold in woodland areas that receive additional sunlight due to falling trees.

I’ll wait until the leaves have fallen and vegetation is dormant before removing fallen trees from across the trail.  This is a large Redbud that went down during one of the wind storms earlier this year.  It should have been rather protected in the low valley between two hills, but the trunk had received damage from a Whitetail buck many years ago.  That deformity weakened the trunk enough to allow it to snap when stressed.

Sections of the trail blocked by large debris are best abandoned.  I have no desire to cut my way through this mess.  Even if I did, cut stubs look too unnatural to me.  I’d rather view them as they fell.

The best alternative route for that section of trail happened to be along the line of the original trail constructed 25 years ago.  The area is a bit crowded by sapling Sugar Maples, but the trail will be easy enough to reopen.

This section of trail was abandoned 16 years ago when blocked by falling trees.  Those trees have since decomposed.  Instead of sawing sections out of the log, all I needed to do was give it a couple of kicks.  The log crumbled easily beneath my mighty boot.

The trail is slightly more winding than it was originally.  The original route was chosen to give a view of the Sugar Maple understory spreading down the back side of the hill.  It’s nice to have the trail back where I first thought it should be.

Misunderstood Virginia Creeper

Growing on the brick wall outside my back door is one of my favorite native vines, Virginia Creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia.  It is a volunteer that I have allowed to grow freely, except for an occasional pruning to keep it from blocking the gutters.  The thick foliage is a haven for a multitude of insects, frogs and birds.

The leaves turn a bright red color in the fall and make an impressive display.  Few plants can rival the brilliant red displayed by a healthy Virginia Creeper leaf.

The plant does have one problem.  Too many people are under the mistaken impression that Virginia Creeper is actually a mutant form of Poison Ivy or more commonly, they think it is Poison Oak.  It bothers me to see people cut and spray a plant because of a misidentification.  A Virginia Creeper leaf is composed of five leaflets, although by accident or design that number may be reduced.  Poison Ivy and Poison Oak both have three leaflets.  Poison Oak is also a western species, so people in the eastern U.S. don’t have to worry about it.

Even if you were to pull a couple of leaflets off of the Virginia Creeper leaf, the difference between it and the Poison Ivy, shown on the left, is quite distinct.  There are many differences in the shape and design of the leaflets, but the most easily recognized feature is the long stem at the base of the center leaflet of the Poison Ivy.  The bases of the Virginia Creeper leaflets are very short and practically identical in length.

Virginia Creeper is a member of the Grape Family and the blue fruits look much like wild grapes.  Birds are quick to clean up these fruits and drop the seeds over a wide area.

This particular vine was growing in the center of a drainage way, so received some additional moisture through the year.  Many of the Virginia Creeper vines in upland areas failed to produce any fruit because of the ongoing drought conditions.  If people would give this vine a chance, I think they would grow to like it.

Always Check the Unusual

I never pass up the opportunity to examine something that just doesn’t look quite right.  As I was walking through the field, I noticed Field Thistle flower heads showing what seemed to be a central disk.  That is something that should not be.

There was definitely something odd about the center of the flower, but it didn’t appear to be a part of the flower itself.

It seemed to be an animal.  I began to think Japanese Beetle.

Definitely a beetle, but not Japanese.  It was really digging deep into the flowerhead.

It took some poking to get the beetle to back its head out of the flower.  This is a Dark Flower Scarab, Euphoria sepulcralis, a type of Flower Beetle.  These big flower beetles are fun to watch as they wallow around inside a big flower.  They remind me of desert travelers in the old movies who would jump into the oasis pool and whoop around splashing water all over themselves.

Clearing Plans

Cedar removal is going to be a top priority work activity this winter.  In preparation, I’ve been going around to assess the condition of the brush piles and determine the area necessary to allow the cut cedars to bring the piles back up to their original eight foot height.  I’ve built enough brush piles that there is now one within dragging distance of all potential cedar clearing areas.  This particular pile was built in February 2004 and contained mostly medium sized cedars of 10 to 12 feet.  Cedars of that size take a while to decompose, so this pile is still about a third of its original height.

Here’s the cedar that stands above that brush pile.  Using a large cedar to give stability to the pile allows me to build a higher pile and reduce the ground area actually covered by brush.  Supporting a large pile of brush doesn’t seem to have any negative impacts on the health of the cedar.

The piles support a wide variety of wildlife species.  Each has been penetrated by at least one burrowing animal.  There are only a couple of species that actually excavate, but there are many more that are ready to take over a burrow after the builder has moved on.

My 2004 clearing activities were concentrated on the upper slopes of the hill.  I knew that I would eventually be working to clear more of the hillside, so I established the brush pile all the way at the bottom of the hill.  After nine growing seasons, my cedar dragging corridor from work area to brush pile is just as open as the day it was created.

The upper slopes show a good mix of vegetation despite being stunted by lack of rainfall.  The biggest surprise here was the number of Spiranthes magnicamporum orchids that bloomed within a few years of clearing.

In a couple of places I just created openings so I could see how the vegetation responded to increased sunlight.  There was nothing unusual in most places, but the diversity of species increased dramatically.

Several large slabs of limestone bedrock project from the hillside.  An area of vigorously growing tall grass develops down hill from each slab.  Rain water falling on the slabs runs off, giving a small area an increased amount of water.  Plants growing near the rock benefit by this added moisture.  It’s the same effect you get at the edge of a driveway or sidewalk where water flows off into the lawn.

Uncleared areas show very little ground cover.  Shade and dry soil make it tough for much of anything to grow here.  Removing the medium sized cedars should increase sunlight penetration by 30 to 50 percent.  That should be enough to make a difference in the plant composition on the ground.

 

Ants and Dragonflies

 

The year is full of seasonal events.  Some I like and some I don’t.  As I was heading home yesterday evening, the road through our nearest town was closed in preparation for the annual fall street fair.  That’s one of those events I don’t like.  When I finally pulled into my driveway, I saw a large dragonfly swarm circling the Prairie Garden.  I always enjoy the fall swarms of dragonflies and this one was partly created by another of my favorite events.  Ants were swarming.

Ants taking off on their mating flight remind me of chumming the water for sharks.  Dragonflies come from all directions to feed on the ants.  This is usually an evening event and the lowering sun lights up both ants and dragonflies.  Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible for me to capture a photo that comes close to illustrating the beauty of the interaction between these two insects.  Nobody would guess that this photo contained a couple dozen flying ants and four dragonflies.

Occasionally I’ll capture an image that is recognizable as a dragonfly.  They all appeared to be Common Green Darners.

Other photos seem more suited to proving the existence of pixies or tiny x-winged fighters cruising above the fields of Blue Jay Barrens.

The dragonflies seemed to be targeting the large queen ants.  The queen’s flight was rather slow and there was a good bet that a dragonfly would nab her before she topped an altitude of 12 feet.  I think I just caught the tail end of the swarming event.  I probably would have been home in time to see the entire swarm if I hadn't had to detour around town.  During the peek of the swarm there would have been far too many ants in the air for the dragonflies to have caused much damage.  Those last few ants would have been trying to survive a sky full of predators.

The ants attempt to reach a high point, such as the tip of a blade of grass, before launching into the air.  This queen kept running up the grass blade and plummeting from the tip back down to the ground.  That’s probably why she’s one of the last to take to the air.  Maybe it’s best for her to be eaten, so she doesn’t pass on those bad swarming traits.

The workers and winged males were very small.  I had to crawl with my face almost to the ground in order to find them.  During the search, the neighbors drove past the house.  They just waved.  I guess my behavior no longer strikes them as being odd.

Amidst all of the workers was one that carried an ant cocoon in its jaws.  I guess being late hatching doesn’t excuse you from swarming.

Northern Fence Lizard Youngster

I’ve only seen a few adult Northern Fence Lizards this year, but hatchlings have been showing up on a regular basis.  They’re probably not really hatchlings since they didn’t just crawl from the egg.  Their size indicates they haven’t been long out of the shell, so I’m just using the term to describe a very young lizard.

I found this guy on the barn wall.  He’s probably the smallest specimen I’ve seen all summer.  I’m wondering what has caused the abundance of youngsters.  I’m leaning towards the theory that the early warm up in late winter allowed the lizards to emerge from hibernation much sooner than normal.  This would have allowed for earlier mating, earlier egg laying and earlier hatching.  The most important point being that older females would have had time to lay more than one clutch of eggs and this would account for the emergence of lizards over a period of months.  Since this is all based on casual observations, it’s also possible that I’ve just been in a position to notice more lizards this year.

I was trying to get a close look to see if the egg tooth was still attached.  The egg tooth is used to slice open the egg shell at hatching and is soon lost.  I think the tooth is gone, but the spot it occupied is still visible at the tip of the snout.

The natural pattern and colors of the lizard make superb camouflage when the lizard is running on the rocks, fallen trees and tree trunks which are its normal haunts.  The visual effect fails when the background is a solid color.

It’s easy to see why this species is referred to as a spiny lizard.  I love the spiky scales.  Upon close examination each scale seems to have its own unique shape and color pattern.  The whole effect gives the lizard the appearance of invulnerability.  Of course there’s a whole list of predators ready to prove that to be untrue.

Northern Fence Lizards are great climbers as long as the surface they are scaling is rough enough for a toe hold.  Long, sharp nails tip the toes and allow a firm grip.  I can’t be sure why I’m seeing so many lizards this year.  Whatever the reason, it’s been a lot of fun.