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.  

Goats in the Woods - A Update

Three of "the girls"

Since I'd only been getting anecdotal reports over the last few months on our four goats' efforts to control invasive plants, I asked my stewardship staff to join me in the field yesterday to review progress first-hand.

The staff has created a portable electrified enclosure that they have been moving around in a dense, overgrown thicket.  The staff members have found that the goats like the herbaceous portions of woody plants, but they won't eat fibrous stems.  So, they'll strip the leaves and tender stems from porcelain-berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata), multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), shrub & Japanese honeysuckles (Lonicera spp.), Asian bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), and privet (Ligustrum spp.).  They clear the patches to the ground, but leave the woody stems standing.  The staff has decided that the way to proceed is then manually to remove the stripped woody stems, either by uprooting them or by cutting the stems and painting herbicide on the cut stumps.

Foreground cleared by the goats last week

Some of the shaded patches that the goats cleared earliest (about two months ago) and which the staff members did not subsequently address by hand have begun to resprout.  It would be feasible to return the goats to those patches again, but so far the regrowth has been very modest and would provide very little food, so the fenced enclosure would have to be moved almost daily - a pain in the neck.  Instead, the staff will go back and address the regrowth by hand.

Cleared patch on the right originally looked like the uncleared thicket on the left

There are some gaps without tree cover in the thicket.  These sunny patches have been overwhelmed by porcelain-berry.  While this plant is among the goats' favorites, the plant can recover from browsing quickly when it's growing in the sun.  The patches cleared by the goats are now lushly green again.  We've decided to move the goats back to these patches, let them clear the porcelain-berry for a second time to expose the soil surface (and hidden obstacles like rocks and tree trunks), and then to mow the patches to control the porcelain-berry until we have a chance to plant trees this autumn.

Stewardship Assistant and goatherd Gary (right) estimating the height of the vegetation before the goats cleared this sunny gap; unfortunately, the porcelain-berry has re-surged in this sunny opening.

My overall assessment after a few months' experience?  First, simply managing the goats is a lot of work for the staff because the goats have to be herded out to the thicket each morning and then returned to their overnight pen in the evening.  Furthermore, the portable enclosure needs to be moved frequently.  And, personally, I'm disappointed that the goats largely ignore the woody stems; they won't even girdle (let alone eat) the huge Asian bittersweet and porcelain-berry vines (though, surprisingly, they have girdled some of the younger cherry trees growing in the thicket).  I'll let this experiment go on for a while, but the staff would like to enlarge the herd to make it more cost-effective; right now, I just don't see that happening.

Colorado Rocky Mountain High - and Dry

Kali enjoying an all-natural Sno-Cone at Ouzel Lake

For our last natural excursion in Colorado in June, we elected to explore the Wild Basin area in the extreme southeast corner of Rocky Mountain National Park.  In making our decision about where to explore, we considered that we'd been to the spectacular alpine meadows on the Continental Divide in the park previously, and the road to the Bear Lake section of the park (which we had also visited on our last trip) was being reconstructed and we were warned that traffic there was horrendous.  In addition, because there's easy access by road, the alpine meadows and Bear Lake sections of the park are extremely popular.  So we opted for Wild Basin, accessible only by foot or horse.

A group of seniors botanizing at the beginning of the Wild Basin Trail 

There's a hummingbird moth sipping nectar from the flowers in the right third of this image

 Wild Basin is drained by North St. Vrain Creek (I love that name).  The first stopping place along the trail is Copeland Falls where the creek plunges over two cataracts, the Upper and Lower Falls, the Upper of which is the more spectacular of the two.

Upper Copeland Falls on N. St. Vrain Creek

N. St. Vrain Creek canyon above Copeland Falls

A horsetail glen in a low spot along the Wild Basin Trail

The first two miles or so of the Wild Basin Trail are heavily traveled because the walk is only moderately difficult, there are three scenic waterfalls, and the distance makes for a good out-and-back day hike.  About one mile into the trip, I came across the plant whose image appears below.  It was growing from a crack between two stone steps that the National Park Service had placed along the trail to make the going a bit easier.  Dozens, if not hundreds of people walk this trail every day, yet here was this plant growing literally underfoot.  I was sure it was a member of the weird Broom-rape family since it had no leaves or chlorophyll and had the typical "fleshy" appearance of many of the broom-rapes.  Eventually, I caught up with one of the senior citizen botanist-hikers and asked her if she had noticed the plant.  While she hadn't seen it, when I described the plant to her she corrected me and told me that it was an orchid. 

An orchid growing in the trail

Tight grip in a tough spot

Midway along the popular part of the Wild Basin Trail, Cony Creek joins N. St. Vrain Creek by plunging over the Calypso Cascades.

Calypso Cascades on Cony Creek

Trail bridge over Cony Creek at the base of the cascades

Most visitors hike two miles to Ouzel Falls on Ouzel Creek, and then turn around and retrace their steps back to the trailhead.  That had been Kali's and my intention as well.  But one of the botanizing seniors told us that there was a great view of Wild Basin and good spot for lunch a few hundred feet further along the trail, so we followed her to a scenic overlook.

Ouzel Falls on Ouzel Creek

Kali (right) and one of the botanizing seniors surveying Wild Basin.  This view is eastward.

As we ate our our lunch, a young woman came by, returning from a hike to Ouzel Lake located three miles higher up in the basin.  Since it was still relatively early, we felt pretty strong, and we didn't have any other obligations, we decided to give it a go, too.

Unfortunately, from the high point vista overlooking the basin, the trail then descended a few hundred feet, then began to ascend again to regain the lost elevation.  The ascent was short and steep, and Kali very nearly declared the extension to be a mistake.  But, she persevered and we finally climbed up onto a ridge where walking was easy.  The forest on the ridge had burned years ago, so the trail was exposed and hot.

Kali on the Ouzel lake Trail, hiking through an old burn

Ouzel Lake, with Copeland Mountain (13,176 ft.) in the background

Ouzel Creek at the outlet from Ouzel Lake

Because we had crossed so much open ground under cloudless skies during the hike, we were really thirsty when we finally reached Ouzel Lake.  (We'd only brought enough water to hike comfortably to Ouzel Falls.)  So, we decided to dig into some of the winter snowdrifts that remained around the edge of the lake and enjoy natural "Sno-Cones."  We're really glad we did, since they cooled and re-hydrated us.

Returning from Ouzel Lake, which is located amid the dense conifer forest in the background

 While most of the Ouzel Lake Trail was high and very dry, when the trail dipped into shallow valleys and ravines, the snowmelt and small rivulets supported lush stands of wildflowers. 

Asters and lichens

A species of Polemonium (Jacob's Ladder), long since done flowering in the East

This was the final - and best - hike of our Western trip.  This beautiful hike was the clincher in our decision to retire to Colorado and the Rocky Mountains in a few years.

Avian Action

Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus)  (Image from USDA-NRCS website)

 

 On Sunday afternoon (July 22), a couple came up to me and told me excitedly that they had just come back from a walk on our native grassland where they had seen a bird that they had never seen before.  They described the bird to me, and it sounded like they were describing a Bobolink, one of the meadow-nesting birds we have been trying to attract to our grasslands for the last 10 years.  We consulted a field guide, and the hikers confirmed that they had seen at least two - and maybe more - pairs of Bobolinks in the fields.

Boy, did I get excited, too!  Bobolinks stop in the grassland for a week or so on their migration northward in May, and we often see them in September and October as they head back south, but we've never been able to manage to "convince" them to breed in our grasslands.  Surely, birds in the fields in mid-July have been here, breeding but unobserved, all summer.

Just by chance, one of our premier birders happened by a few minutes later and I shared the news with him.  He was excited, too, and said that he was going to go out to search the fields for the birds, but he also had some discouraging news.  He said that other birders in our area had been seeing migrants beginning to "mosey" back south already, and that some of those early migrants were Bobolinks.  Alas, I'm afraid that we just have a few members of the avant garde in our fields, too.  Maybe next year...

Wild Turkey hens and chicks (Meleagris gallopavo)

Yesterday morning, as I was washing up the breakfast dishes, three hen turkeys ambled up outside the kitchen window accompanied by some skittish chicks.  The turkeys have had a hard time this year with a surfeit of foxes, coyotes, and Cooper's Hawks in the preserve.  But, somehow, these three hens, which have now gathered themselves and their offspring into a small flock, have managed to protect and raise 11 chicks to the point where they are much less vulnerable to predators.  We've seen lots of hens with no chicks this year, probably because their nests were raided and destroyed, so it was really good to see this group.

Naturally, I offered them some food: black oil sunflower for the hens, and millet for the chicks.