Autumn Harbinger

Common Nighthawk (Internet image by Bill Schmoker)

It's not here yet, but when the Common Nighthawks (Chordeiles minor) make their evening appearance over the preserve's grasslands, autumn cannot be far behind.  I keep a close watch on the sky over the fields as dusk approaches this time of year, and last evening was rewarded with a single nighthawk - the first of the season.

It's not like the arrival of the nighthawks is the only evidence of the end of summer.  The Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) and Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) patrolling the airspace over the meadows have been replaced by Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) (and tremendous numbers of dragonflies, too!).  The foliage of the flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida) is turning decidedly crimson, and the Indian-grass (Sorghastrum nutans), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and deep magenta purpletop (Tridens flavus) are in full flower.

But it's the annual arrival of the nighthawks that clinches the deal for me.

Unexpected Meadow Denizen

Sedge Wren at Attwater Prairie-chicken NWR near Houston, Texas (Image by JoAnn Raine, one of our premier birders, who herself migrated to Texas)

One of our expert birders emailed me this morning to inform me that he had spotted a male Sedge Wren - and possibly a female as well - in the tall, native grasslands we have created in the natural area preserve.  He said they could possibly be a breeding pair since the species is known to breed into September.  From my perspective, I suppose they could just as easily be early migrants, as were the Bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) that showed up a month early this year.

According to the Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania, the Sedge Wren (Cistothorus platensis) is "among the least familiar of all of Pennsylvania's songbirds...rare and local in its distribution."  The book goes on to say that "At the recommendation of the Pennsylvania Biological Survey, the Pennsylvania Game Commission  has listed the species as threatened."

Even if the pair that our birder spotted this morning isn't breeding in our grasslands, it's great to know that the birds are using the habitat we've created as a safe haven during migration.

Saturday, Creekside

While the temperatures were only in the low 80s on Saturday morning, the humidity was nearing double digits.  Nevertheless, fearing a case of air conditioning cabin fever, Kali and I took a walk along the creek.  We came back soaked with sweat ("My clothes are only good for a half-day!" lamented Kali), but more limber for having explored the late summer riparian woods.

We came across a sprawl of dodder (Cuscuta spp.) growing among Green-headed Coneflowers (Rudbeckia laciniata) on the streambank.  The Philadelphia Inquirer did a fascinating story about the New Jersey cranberry bogs a few weeks ago, quoting a farmer who said that he and his crew have to be extraordinarily diligent about controlling dodder or it will kill all of the cranberry plants.  I'm really fascinated by unusual plants like the non-photosynthetic, parasitic dodder, which looks like orange Silly String sprayed on the hapless victims, but the patches that I find are never huge, won't threaten to wipe out the streamside vegetation, and don't appear every year.

Green-headed Coneflowers have come into their own along the banks of the creek as they do each year in August.  I find Asians furtively harvesting the plant's tender basal leaves in early spring and have to stop them because collecting is not permitted in the preserve; their gleaning doesn't seem to make a dent in the population, though.

Another plant coming into its own is porcelain-berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata) - my nemesis.  So named because the bright blue, speckled berries reminded people of porcelain doorknobs, this non-native, invasive vine, a member of the grape family (Vitaceae), is the bane of my professional existence.

Come hither, oh ye legions of birds!  Eat me and poop me out everywhere!

My staff has been clearing a thicket over the last week or so.  This doe took advantage of the clearing to gain easy access to the interior, where she might find some particularly succulent sprouts.  One of the things my staff found while clearing the tangle was a stand of a dozen marijuana plants, carefully staked with camouflaged stakes and obviously well tended.  We've set-up a trail camera in the adjacent woodland, but have yet to get a shot of the entrepreneurial farmer.

 Later in the afternoon, we returned to the creek for "Crayfish Catch."  Despite the efforts of thirty or so people in the riffles, we only roused three crayfish (and a Northern Water Snake).  The creek doesn't provide good habitat for crayfish and their ilk; while the water is of high enough quality to support them, the streambed is so full of sediment that it fills the interstices between the rocks and stones.

The winning catch (in terms of size)

Guest Images - Late Summer

Keith Collins, a friend of mine, spent a few hours in "my" natural area on Wednesday morning, August 8, gathering images of the preserve in late summer.  I'm sharing four of his better images since I haven't had a chance to hit the trails myself in a few days.  It was very humid on Wednesday morning, which I believe helped Keith to capture the mood in the meadow in the image above.

Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) in flower

Unfurling (Queen Anne's-lace, Daucus carota)

Majesty

Can't Seem To Do The Right Thing

Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) (Image from Cornell Lab of Ornithology website)

Twenty years ago, Kali and I established a small ever-blooming rose patch in the middle of our front lawn, replacing a derelict wisteria arbor that was there when we moved in.  In addition to the fact that the arbor had fallen into unsalvageable disrepair, the wisteria plant itself was extremely invasive, sending fibrous roots dozens of feet in all directions and erupting above ground into strangling vines that overwhelmed our planting beds.  I'm still killing errant wisteria plants two decades later.

But back to the roses.  We have to enclose the roses in wire fencing to keep deer from decimating the shrubs, but the fence makes maintenance tasks difficult, so the rose patch is not always the most carefully tended feature of our already marginally tended landscape.  This year, the rose patch was particularly untidy.  I hadn't trimmed the canes back during the winter, so they were long, gangly, and unruly, and thick herbaceous vegetation (i.e., weeds) colonized around the shrubs' bases.  It was unsightly.

So, despite withering temperatures and humidity last Saturday morning, we decided to "tackle the roses before it got too hot." (It was actually too hot even before we set foot out the door.)  We worked for about two hours pulling weeds and subduing the canes until, as we approached the center of the rose patch, I suddenly noticed that a small mound of dried grasses and fluffy lint at the base of one of the roses was rhythmically heaving and making squeaking noises.  Kali told me to stop clearing immediately and to leave it alone, whatever it was.  I think she was looking for an excuse to get out of the sun, but I did stop clearing and worked for another half-hour hauling the weeds and cut canes to the compost pile.  In the process of making several trips to the pile, I noticed that a Gray Catbird was hanging around the roses, sometimes with a caterpillar in its beak.  A-ha!  The mass of dried grasses was a Gray Catbird nest that we had inadvertently tipped out of its nook in the rose canes, and the immature bird(s) were struggling to get free of the overturned nest.

I went into the house to cool off and have lunch, but then decided to go back to the roses to try to return the nest and its occupants to its original nook.  When I went back to the roses and started to try to pick up the nest, I quickly realized that the nest had never been built in the rose canes, it had always been just where it was now, on the ground and carefully tucked into the base of one of the larger, more protective roses, almost like the nest of an Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus).  Weird!  So, I left well enough alone, though the nest, formerly hidden among the weeds and thorns, was now at least half exposed by our meddling.

To make matter worse, while working in another overgrown, weedy patch of the yard about 50 feet from the roses I came across the largest Eastern garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) I have ever seen.  I can't win for losing.

A Natural Legacy

My father, Raymond, in September 2011

My father died yesterday morning at home with my stepmother in California.  He was 86 and had been receiving in-home hospice care for congestive heart failure since January.  His dying was less a surprise than the fact that he hung in there so long.

My father and I became increasingly close as we both aged.  He was a gentle man, a good father, and a good husband.

In contemplating our relationship, I've decided that I am most indebted to him for two things.  First, though he was an ardent sports fanatic, he never, ever pushed his bookish, nerdy first son to participate in organized sports.  (My youngest brother was a jock, so Dad could get his sports "fix" from my brother.)  Second, though he wasn't an outdoorsman in the classic sense of the term (i.e., a fisherman or a hunter), he had a real appreciation for the natural world that he passed along to me - a living legacy.

Playing with the Moon

One of the obligations of my employment is to secure the natural area at dark.  There's a gate across the entrance to the parking lot that must be closed each evening after all the visitors have departed.  Last night, Kali and I went out to close the gate about 9 p.m.

Although it was humid, there was a breeze.  Clouds scudded across the sky, which was illuminated by a nearly full moon.  At one point, the moon disappeared behind a large, dense cloud; the moon shining behind ringed the cloud with quicksilver.

By the time I was able to get to my camera, the dense cloud had moved on, but I still got some images.  They're not great shots, but I thought they were interesting.  All were hand-held.  The red-orange glow on the lower horizon of the third image is light pollution courtesy of Philadelphia - 15 miles away.