October, 2017: Describe your walk by adding a comment below
Each time you go out and make observations for this project, describe your walk by adding a comment to this post. Include the date, distance walked, and categories that you used for this walk.
Suggested format:
Date. Place. Distance walked today. Total distance for this project.
Categories.
Brief description of the area, what you saw, what you learned, who was with you, or any other details you care to share.
Comentarios
October 1, 2017. La Teich, France. 11 miles today, 541.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, invasive plants, familiar families, flowers
Walked with my husband to the train station in the next town. A bus would have been nice, but the inter-suburb bus doesn't run on Sundays. Google suggested taking an Uber, but we don't have data on our phones, so no Uber. We took the train to La Teich to visit the coastal bird reserve. The reserve was phenomenal, with well-designed trails to keep people from disturbing the birds, yet allow them good views of the birds from blinds. Today was probably the biggest "lifebird" day of my life. Lifebirds today included Eurasian coots, gray heron, pied avocet, white stork, crested grebe, peeps and gulls galore, and a handful of warblers. And then there were the "usual" birds like European robins and blue tits. In between birds, there were plenty of plants to look at. Unfortunately, a lot of them were invasives, like Baccharis halimifolia and pokeberry from the US, phragmites., but no Japanese knotweed. A signboard in the reserve finally gave me a name for one of the common local oaks: Quercus rober, a white oak with elongated acorns.
10-1-17 Waren Middle School, Warren, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 132.75 miles total
Categories: unintentional plants
My daughter wanted me to come with her to the school where she's seen a spider in the same place every day at gym. Of course, it wasn't there when we got there. We did walk the property and check out the plants, and in the process saw two flying preying mantises, something I'd not seen before. It must have been wetter than I'd realized as there was swamp milkweed and water hemlock. The only surprise plant was a planted oak in the front yard, with leaves like burr and aborted acorns like overcup. We also saw three "ospreys", but the V-22 military plane variety, not the actual birds.
10-1-17 My backyard and McCullough Hill Rd, Middlesex, VT. 1 miles today, 3 miles total (although I still need to post about my White Rocks hike from last weekend!).
Categories: lichens growing on the ground
A chilly walk this morning with Daisy - 35 degrees and lots of frost! I've been looking at lichens the last few days - today photographing some growing on the ground. Also lots of migrant songbirds on our walk - Nashville and Tennessee Warblers, Winter Wren, both species of kinglet. It's been a great fall migration!
10-2-17. Gradignan, France. 3.7 miles today, 545.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, road kill
Started the day with a bird walk in the back yard. Our robin sang for us, and a large flock of starlings flew over. I struggled to get some of the little birds in the bushes. I'm slowly beginning to realize that our landlord may have planted the shrubs at the back of the yard with birds in mind--hazelnuts, and several other kinds of fruiting bushes, all of which seem popular with the small birds. Still no visitors to our feeder. I shot some road kill on the way to and from work, and our walk downtown as well: a frog, a snail, a bird (probably pigeon).
10-3-17. Gradignan, France. 3.5 miles today, 548.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, road kill, insects
Misty morning in the yard today--the birds were reluctant to be seen. On the way to work I found another dead frog in the road. Even though there's no water near us, the frogs seem to wander in the roads at night. Or maybe they just like to hop in the rain. In other news, I finally caught a grasshopper today.
10-2-17. Green Acres, Rt. 31, Hopewell, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 133 miles total
Categories: insects, blooming, unintentional
I was busy during my daughter's PT today, but I managed to squeeze in a 10-minute walk on the way home, at a little parcel of land with a dirt lot and a mowed path marked "Green Acres" but with no actual name that I can find anywhere. The path led to a falling-down barn. No real surprises, but a pretty nodding spurge at the entrance and some bittersweet turning colors everywhere but the veins, which was pretty, too.
10-3-17. East County and Duderstadt Parks, Warren, NJ. 1 mile today, 134 miles total
Categories: flowers, not posted here before.
I walked from one old farm through to another. Both are parks now, and I remember both when they were in full swing as farms. The porcelainberry here is worse than anywhere else I've seen it; like pictures of kudzu down south. Lots of goldenrod, mugwort, white snakeroot, and asters. I found rabbit tobacco, which I don't see often, and a sulphur butterfly held still for a long time for me, but I still don't know which it is. The white acorns and hickory nuts in the wood were so thick it was hard to walk.
10-4-17. Gradignan, France. 2.9 miles today, 551.8 miles total.
Categories: birds, French plants I haven't paid attention to yet
The sun was shining this morning, but still, the birds were playing hard to get. Either that, or they were migrating through the yard last week, which is why I caught so many. A large flock of starlings lives in the adjacent field. And the magpies put on a noisy show this morning. While walking to and from work with my husband and then downtown, I stopped to admire some of the plants I've been ignoring on previous trips. Finally shot the Oxalis in the yard.
As we teeter across the sidewalks strewn with acorns here, my husband muses on what would eat acorns. Turkeys? Squirrels? There are squirrels here, although I've only seen one so far. Or, is it common for white oaks to drop so many acorns that most go uneaten?
By the time I see red oak acorns all the whites have disappeared each year. I hear they are the preferred acorn by just about all animals that eat them. Here it's squirrels, chipmunks, deer, turkeys, raccoons and mice. Also bear, grouse, pheasants, bobwhites, crows, jays, woodpeckers, titmice, nuthatches, towhees, thrashers, and grackles, according to Eastman's Forest and Thicket.
10-4-2017 - 2.75 miles, 106.0 miles total. Walked up Mt Philo with my wife, my parents, and Holly. Holly basically did the whole hike and was only carried for a couple of very short sections -her first peak! I've been here before and done iNat but not for several years, so I was able to add several species that are new to the park iNat list. Always nice to be out that way since there are tree species we don't have on our side of the mountains - bitternut and shagbark hickory, white oak, etc. It was unseasonably warm and a nice day.
10-5-17. Gradignan, France. 3.3 miles today, 555.1 miles total.
Categories: birds, butterflies, new plants, road kill
Watched for jackdaws and crows during the morning birdwalk. I'm slowly starting to see the difference. I also saw several painted ladies today. Maybe they're migrating through. The birds in the yard aren't nearly as thick as they were last week--they must have been passing through last week. Glad I got to see them then! I chased quite a few butterflies today, found a few new tiny fungi in the sidewalk, and found a large dead lizard in the road.
Congratulations to Holly, Charlie! That is a tremendous achievement for a 2 year old!
I guess what Gradignan needs is more bears to eat all the acorns that are making the sidewalks so treacherous. Boars would probably also work. We still haven't had any takers at our bird feeder here yet. I put a small pile of sunflower seeds on the ground to see if that would help the birds find them. Nobody touched them during the day. But they disappeared overnight. I'm guessing that a hedgehog might have taken them.
I wonder whether hedgehogs eat acorns?
10-6-17. Gradignan, France. 5.2 miles today, 560.3 miles total.
Categories: birds and butterflies
Some cool air blew in over night, and the birds were back in the yard in the morning. I'm becoming very attached to the European robins in the yard. I'm starting to pick out the individuals and their territories. They are terrific singers! I also saw great tits, jackdaws, magpies, starlings, chiffchaffs, a woodpecker, and a little brown bird. On the way to work, I saw a European blackbird, yet another lifebird for me. There are lots of painted lady butterflies in the neighborhood today, so I chased them around quite a bit. In the evening, I walked across town with my husband to have dinner at a friend's house. On the way we cut through a park that was filled with European holly and bracken fern. The bracken ferns look quite different here, less balanced and taller. I wasn't even sure they were brackens when I first saw them.
Hedgehogs and acorns? I think I need to learn more about hedgehogs. I've seen 3 so far, all flat as a pancake. They don't seem to do road crossings very well.
10-7-17. Gradignan, France (Rando #2). 7.3 miles today, 567.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, flowers, trees, fungi, fruits, mosses, dragonflies
The birds were busy in the bushes this morning. Highlights included "my" robins, a pair of blue tits, and a firecrest. The firecrests seem to be shaped a lot like our golden crowned kinglets, and are just as hard to photograph because they are constantly in motion and shy. I also caught a blackcap and what I think is a common redstart (or maybe a black redstart). After breakfast, my husband and I walked to the farmer's market. On the way to the market, we found a dead thrush in the road. Another lifebird--too bad it was dead.
After lunch, our landlord told us that if we go through the gate in the backyard, we can cross the horse coral, and then we are in the deep woods. Cool! I explored a bit in the woods and found some dried up riverbeds with big knees. And globular cones. Dawn redwoods? Odd to find them growing wild, but there they were. I followed an animal trail but didn't find any animals or tracks. Instead, I found a bright red fungus in the stinkhorn family that spreads out with 5 octopus arms. Not one, but a very large clump of them. The highlight of the day!
My husband and I spent the rest of the afternoon doing Rando #2 from the town tourist board, a published walk that highlights some of the towns scenic spots and landmarks. The best find was a gigantic park not far from where I found my first dead hedgehog last week. It's actually wild woodlands with a trail through it. The woods are mostly filled with gorse underlain with English ivy. But there are also lots of game trails to explore. I am looking forward to poking about in the woods some more.
10-7-17. Washington Valley Park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 134.25 miles total.
Categories: fall blooms, nuts, fall leaves
I dawdled today then only had time for a short walk before going on duty with the rescue squad (my one-every-six-Saturdays shift). It's been extremely dry here, and everything is crispy. The ground where I parked was covered in beech nuts (well, mostly their hulls), then a patch of shagbark hickory nuts, then white oak acorns. The calico asters seem to have finally bloomed; up to last week it was all frost and maybe heath (and New England) but now I'm seeing calico everywhere. Leaves are just starting to turn here; mostly there were Virginia creeper, sassafras, and sweet birch.
So I looked it up and hedgehogs do eat acorns, though they prefer insects. I've never seen knees on Dawn redwood, cool.
10-8-17. Bordeaux Botanical Gardens and environs, Bordeaux, France. 3.9 miles today, 570.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, butterflies, unintentional plants, sidewalk weeds
Walked with my husband to the bus stop in Gradignan center, then took a bus to the Botanical Gardens in downtown Bordeaux. This was the strangest botanical garden experience I have ever had. The gardens were quite weedy and unkempt. Many placards were blank. There were irrigation tanks between garden plots filled with algae, fish, and tadpoles. The tank beside the garden labelled natural bug repellents was loaded with mosquito larvae. At one end of the garden was a large reflecting pool, surrounded by gravel. There were several narrow cement paths through the gravel, covered with bits of gravel that made passage by stroller or other wheels difficult. Sports groups (karate, etc.) were meeting further up the gardens in the grassy areas. There were few benches where someone might want to sit, but several in the sun in the gravel sections. We also toured the green house, where the plants were labeled with numbers which you had to match up with master sheets that had names for all the plants representing each continent together. The sheets had scientific names and common names, mostly in English. Scattered around the greenhouse were large banners with photos and descriptions of the common weeds I've been seeing along the road, like greater celandine. Fortunately, you couldn't find any of the featured weeds inside the greenhouses. So very odd. Nevertheless, there is an interesting collection of labelled trees scattered about the gardens. And I found a plethora of weeds to photograph, including some apparently wild (certainly unlabelled) alfafa in bloom. At the end of the garden, between the plots and the pool were islands of perhaps the former land before it was leveled showing soil profiles, which were fascinating. These islands were covered with seemingly native or at least natural (unlabelled) plants. One of them had a tiny shady oasis that was quite popular with birds and frogs. I managed to get some nice close-ups of a firecrest in there.
I miss the asters and goldenrods--no asters at all here. I found something that looks goldenroddy here yesterday, but not anything I recognized. There's a sweet gum on our walk to town that is bright red right now, but I'm assuming it is not wild.
10-8-17. Jefferson Ave., Middlesex, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 134.75 miles total
Categories: unintentional plants, insects.
I parked at a middle school and walked along a dead end road beside what was listed as Green Acres land on my map, but was posted on every tree "No Trespassing". So I stayed on the road. It rained today but we are still very dry. This was a low-lying but very disturbed area in the suburbs. Mostly there were maples, asters, Japanese stiltgrass, and Japanese knotweed. There was one sassafras about half turned, one sweetgum starting to turn, and the red maples were turning. The silver maples were simply drying up and brown. There was a pool formed in a muddy tire track that was chock full of tadpoles and surrounded by kidneyleaf mud plantain, only the second record in the state (the first was mine, too). And then there was a crested Elsholtzia, just on this junky patch in front of the Japanese knotweed. It's only the third iNat sighting of it in the US. Crazy.
I think your poor, neglected botanical garden was much more interesting than my run-down Olmsted park the other day. I particularly like the ineffective bug repellents.
10-7 and 8 = 1 mile? 107 miles total? not much distance so not sure how to track these. - we took an overnight trip to the Magog, Quebec area. We tried to go on the bog boardwalk again, but there was a wedding at one end and it was blocked off at the other end. I think it's closed and being rebuilt. Then we tried to drive to another spot and there was a detour that looped We finally found a tiny bit of bike trail to walk on in a floodplain. Disturbed area but we found what appeared to be Salix exigua. I don't see any other records for that species near there on iNat or GBIF so it was a surprise. But I don't see what else it would be. The second day we tried to go to several trails but they were closed for hunting season. Which is weird because it's nowhere near the deer hunting season in the US and seems odd to deer hunt before the leaves had fallen. We finally did a tiny walk along a portage trail in the north branch of the missisquoi river. No surprises there but some nice riparian vegetation such as silver maple and got a decent plant species list for an area with no inat observations. Then driving back through Vermont I ot some foliage observations from the car. Then we went to the north side of little river state park/end of Moscow road for a little walk with Holly on a nice wide trail. Nothing new there either really, but some nice yellow birch and aspen foliage.
There is some pretty nice foliage if you go where there are lots of red maples. There are also lots of dull areas. It isn't full landscape like some years. But where it is good, it's pretty impressive. The Maple Corners to Woodbury area and that area around the North Fork of the Missisquoi River are the best I've seen of anywhere we have gone this year.
Here in NJ we're smack in the middle of professional (paid by the state) deer hunting (herd thinning) season in the suburbs.
you all need more deer hunting! If it weren't for chronic wasting disease i'd come down there and eat some of your delicious deer. I've been slowly trying to learn to deer hunt but it's hard in Vermont. In NJ not so much.
In NJ the hard part is finding a bit of land far enough from houses for legal hunting. We get a lot of bow hunters for that reason; you can do it in places you can't use a gun.
yeah, that makes sense. Also a reason why the natural predators would have a hard time surviving there, except eastern coyotes that don't go after deer much
3-9-17. Gradignan, France. 3.4 miles today, 573.9 miles total.
Categories: birds, butterflies
Cloudy and cool today. I managed to shoot a few birds on the way to work and back. The birds seem more active in our bushes now, either that, or I'm starting to notice them more easily. The big thrill of the day was watching a magpie open an acorn. So there's one local animal that definitely eats acorns. But then, why are there so many acorns underfoot? Is it a mast year? Are they not a favored food? We didn't stray off our beaten trail today, so no new plants for the day. No matter--I have a lot to learn from yesterday's trip to Bordeaux.
I'm hoping I get to see a deer here. A colleague at work said he saw one in front of the lab just a week before we arrived. I haven't seen any tracks in the woods yet. As for hunting season around here...I'm clueless. I'm also hoping that since we're in city limits here and the woods are all parks that there won't be any rifles. We were in the mountains in Dordogne, not far from here, about 15 years ago, and hunting could get pretty hairy there, even in mid-summer.
10-9-17. Top of the World Park, Green Brook, NJ. 0.25 mile today, 135 miles total
Categories: fall flowers, fall color
I squeezed in a quick walk before dinner, in a slight drizzle. I've walked here before, so there were no real surprises. Lots of pretty leaves, though the fall color is only just getting started here.
10-10-17. Gradignan, France. 4.3 miles today, 578.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, butterflies, road kill
Took a walk into town early this morning since we were out of bread. I enjoyed the chance to look for some morning birds on our regular route into town, although I actually didn't find many. I found a squished lizard instead. More birds and butterflies on my way to and from work in the afternoon.
The leaves are changing here as well. Right around the house we have a lot of sycamores, which seem to go drab brown instead of bright red. The buckeye trees at work were dropping shiny buckeyes when we first arrived 2 weeks ago. Now they only have a few leaves left, and they are crinkly and brown. The brightest tree around is that sweet gum on the way into town. An American transplant. Why are east coast American trees so bright in fall? And not trees from other places?
Tree of heaven turns brilliant yellow in the fall, and it's not and east coast tree. And then there's aspens and birches. But that red, other than Japanese maples, I can't think of a red tree from anywhere else.
10-10-17. Fort Nonsense, Morristown, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 135.5 miles total
Categories: fall leaves, nuts, flowers, lawn weeds
I had no idea this National Park existed, 30 minutes from my house. Well, I was aware of the overall park, but not of this section. It's a hill where there was once a fort but now is just a lawn with big trees and a single cannon. A nice view. I had a doctor's appointment at the foot of the hill and drove up. I've never seen big chestnut oaks growing above lawn before, so I've never been able to say definitively that these acorns came from that tree. But this time it was easy. There were white and black oaks as well, and shagbark and I think bitternut hickory. And three squirrels and a chipmunk. Not much else, a few ragged wood-edge weeds: knotweed, poke, snakeroot. Some lawn weeds. Not a single other person or car.
I've heard the color is pretty nice in northern China/southern part of western Russia too.
https://northeastasiandeciduousforest.weebly.com/
though probably less so than the ridiculousness that is red maple. I mean, is it physically possible to be more vivid? kinda doubt it.
10-11-17. Gradignan, France. 3.3 miles today, 581.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, butterflies, roadkill
Just the usual commute to and from work today and downtown for shopping. The weather was gorgeous with blue skies from dawn, and I was able to get some nice bird shots from the yard--European magpie and common chiffchaff, especially. The robins have been singing but I haven't spotted them in a few days. The fun surprise of the day was when I lifted up the board in the backyard to check on "my" spiny toad. Not toad today. Instead, there was a large fire salamander waiting for me--alive this time. So far, I've found 3 of them dead in the road, but their corpses give no hint at the outrageous beauty of the live salamander. Wow!
What a great find, Sara! Fort Nonsense? Great name, too!
10-11-17 Bridgewater Promenade and Van Horne House, Bridgwater, NJ 0.5 miles today, 136 miles total
Categories: unintentional plants, flowering, insects, trees.
I had to go to the craft store, so walked behind the Target and Home Depot, along the interstate (well, it was on the other side of the fence). There's a historic home here. Even I can remember before the big stores and stadium were here when the road was much quieter, but now it's the only non-commercial building anywhere nearby. I've never seen it open to the public, but the grounds are immaculately mowed and weeded, not a lawn weed to be seen. Someone has even sprayed herbicide on both sides of the highway fence for a good 4 feet beyond the property. There was literally nothing there but one type of lawn grass, a white mulberry tree and, surprisingly, a whole row of paper mulberries (a tree I'd never seen in person before).
The "mall" was much more interesting, if nearly all invasives. Lots of sassafras, turning colors. Lots of goldenrod with bees and flies, including a feather legged fly, which I think is cute. Nearly all your basic roadside weeds. Target was clearly lower than Home Depot, though it doesn't look it, but the weeds were more flood-friendly there, dryer on the other side.
I looked up those fire salamanders; wow indeed! And I like the idea of having your own spiny toad. and chiffchaff is a bird I'd never heard of until you went to France.
I would say burning bush and Virginia creeper give red maple a run for its money in vividness, but not on such a large scale. One week from now every woodland anywhere near me will be hot pink with burning bush; it's everywhere here.
10.11.2017. Middlesex, VT. 1 mile walked with Daisy. 4 miles total. I'm going to post one blooming flower a day until there's nothing left blooming for the season! Telling myself that my not-very-ambitious goal is better than not posting at all! Today's flower was Heartleaf Aster.
10-12-17. Gradignan, France. 2.2 miles today, 583.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, invasive plants, trees, unfamiliar plants
Bird watching was tough this morning since there was heavy fog until nearly 2 pm. Then I finally got a chance to take a dedicated exercise walk today, away from our regular routes to work and town and back. I tried to find my way to the nearest park on the map (besides the one that abuts our back fence). It seems it's a park in name only and is actually part of a chateau in private ownership. I walked around the entire fenced perimeter and peered in where I could. Along the edges it is all land gone wild. I studied the trees quite a bit as I walked since they seem quite wild, not planted like all the street trees. There are a lot of poplars--cottonwoods, perhaps? And I think I found some western cedars (Thuja plicata). There was a lot of pokeberry scattered about. And some Virginia creeper (bright red, of course!). All of these are invasives around here. I saw a nice bright calendula growing in a vacant lot by itself--I guess that one is native for here. The plant reputations are getting all turned upside down in my head, with American plants now considered invasive. And then there are other plants that are native in both places, but look different. Like the bracken fern that is taller than me here, or the evening primrose with rose-sized flowers.
Good luck with your bloom search, Chip! With luck, you may have dandelions in December!
10-12-17. Scherman-Hoffman Sanctuary, Bernardsville, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 136.75 miles total.
Categories: blooming, fruiting, unintentional, insects
This is the NJ Audubon sanctuary. I've not been here since the spring, and never in October, and I walked a section I'd not walked before. Some of it is fenced away from deer and there is a massive difference in the number of knee-high plants in that section, though mostly seedlings of the taller trees. The big surprise for me was finally a knapweed that's not Tyrol, this was brown knapweed, and about the only place I found bees and flies today. Between drought and fall, most everything is dried up and not flowering, but the leaves are only starting to change. Interestingly, the entire road here was lined with spicebush (easy to spot right now as it's about half yellow, half green) and I saw none at all in the sanctuary itself.
A flower a day sounds like fun. And so many times I have gone to a "park" only to find it fenced and/or posted. Very frustrating.
10-13-17. Gradignan, France. 3.3 miles today, 587 miles total.
Categories: birds, insects, trees, invasives, new friends
I walked around the block today after lunch--actually, several blocks, as I try to understand how the city is laid out. I walked along the wall of the park that wasn't, and also wandered through the woods in several areas that weren't marked as parks. So I guess it all evens out. I found 2 kinds of grasshoppers, maybe 2 kinds of ash, and some Japanese knotweed right on the street where we live that I hadn't noticed before. Just around the block was some passionflower in bloom, apparently wild.
Spicebush easy to spot? Easy for you to say--I've only ever seen it in picture books.
As for the chiffchaffs, I had never heard of them either, not until I started getting corrections on my IDs. A few weeks before coming here, I got a list of most commonly reported birds for the state of Aquitaine from ebird and started studying them hard, both the English names and the French names. I learned white stork, dunlin, and Cetti's warbler, and about 50 other birds. And I sat in the backyard, dutifully watching for white storks, trying to figure out where in Gradignan I should go looking for them. Then when we made the trip to La Teich bird reserve, there were the white storks and dunlins and other water birds from my list of most common birds. And I slowly began to realize that the special and rare birds from La Teich are very over-represented on eBird since everyone goes there to watch birds. But there are probably many fewer lists submitted from ordinary backyards away from the coast. As a result, white storks make the list of most common birds from Aquitaine, even though they are extremely rare and you are only going to see them in La Teich. Meanwhile, the common chiffchaff, who I have seen in the backyard almost every day since I arrived, wasn't on my most common bird list, so I had no idea what it was when I first saw it. Anyway, I guess plant people are the same way about chasing rare species--here on iNaturalist, the most common plants listed for Aquitaine seem to be all orchids. But the reality on the ground is, Hedera helix is the dominant species throughout the woods (or at least the semi-urban woods around here). And I was the first one to document it at all.
well, i add enough blurry white pine observations to balance it out somewhat in Vermont :)
Chiffchaff sounds like rifraff
One of the main reasons I post so many weeds and common plants to iNat is to help tip that balance so the site more accurately reflects the actual abundance of species, rather than the "special" ones.
also, 'common' plants sometimes become not so common due to unfortunate events. Anyone know the exact range of American Chestnut in Vermont? Nope. Used to be one of the most common trees on the continent. We aren't so sure about how elm played into floodplain ecology either, just that it was important and now it is much diminished
And we've just lost hemlock, are rapidly losing multiflora rose (not necessarily a tragedy) and are about to lose our ashes, here in NJ. The common plants change.
how are you losing multiflora rose? I want to lose that!
Amazing story about the multiflora rose--who woulda thunk?
I agree with both you about the common plants. You can never have too many road shots of white pines, Charlie! Might as well add hemlocks, too, if they're going to be in short supply. I'm always after the forgotten little invasives. Like pineapple weed. It isn't as common as you might think. But how will we understand where it grows if we don't know where it grows and where it doesn't. I've been searching for it here. It's in my France plant book, but I haven't found any yet. It's very surprising to see all the pokeweed around, though. And to find out that Thuja here is a noxious invasive. But where does it grow? And where doesn't it?
10-14-17. Gradignan, France. 7 miles today, 594 miles total.
Categories: birds, new flowers, trees, invasives
I did a little bird watching in the yard this morning, but it was foggy again, so it was hard to see the birds. Nevertheless, I still got a new one, a tree creeper. I only got one photo--I don't know if that will be enough to say which kind of creeper since there are several here. After breakfast, I walked down to the farmer's market with my husband. It was the 40th anniversary celebration of the market, with free fancy market bags for all. On the way, we saw a wood pigeon, a blackbird, and mistletoe. Plenty of mistletoe. I just read that France is one of the top mistletoe producers of the world. The trees with mistletoe in it don't look very happy. I found several new weedy looking flowers on the way back from the market. In the afternoon, we took Randonee #3 around town, which covered much of the same territory as #1, but in the opposite direction. During the walk, I saw a white wagtail in the center of town, a slew of new weedy flowers, and 2 small rock ferns, one of which looks like a spleenwort. And then on the way home, I saw a large bird in a tree along a busy road near a street light. I shot it with my 300 mm lens, but I couldn't figure out what the bird was. I thought at first it was maybe a falcon, and then maybe a pigeon. When I got home and zoomed in on the photo, it seems to be a duck. Actually, 2 ducks. Doing something together. Oh dear.
LOL, I love the surprise ducks.
We are losing multiflora rose to rose rosette. For instance my neighbor's yard had a 30 foot by 50 foot patch of multflora when I moved in 25 years ago. They've done nothing to it. Rose rosette moved in about 8 years ago and every rose there is gone now. It's all porcelainberry and Japanese wisteria (which are really not an improvement). It's also a huge threat to cultivated roses. I've actually read that mockingbird range is closely tied to multiflora rose, and I wonder if they are also declining.
interesting. i've noticed a strong correlation between multiflora rose and deer ticks so as far as i'm concerned almost anything else is better.
this is also one of the odd peripheral impacts of invasives. They spread over a huge area creating a monoculture with little to no genetic diversity... a breeding ground for diseases which can sweep through then jump to other species. they aren't sustainable over the long term (centuries+) otherwise they would have taken over millenia ago
A few years back we had an explosive invasion of brown marmorated stink bugs. They would come into houses more than multicolored asian lady beetles, box elder bugs and western conifer seed bugs combined. Then they crashed. They are still here, but I see one or two a month, not the dozens upon dozens there were 10 years ago. But insects change more quickly than plants.
I wasn't walking, but this morning I got stuck in traffic on the way to my gym because a pair of tom turkeys were displaying in the middle of an intersection. They didn't move until a fire truck blew its air horn at them, then slowly sauntered off. After working out I went back to see if I could find them to take a picture, and there were 5. One knocking on the glass door of an accountant's office. Three of them chased my car, gobbling wildly. I couldn't stop laughing.
10-15-17. Bordeaux, France. 8 miles today, 602 miles total.
Categories: birds, sidewalk weeds, invasives
Did a little birding in the backyard this morning, then went into Bordeaux to meet up with some friends from the US who we haven't seen in a couple of years. They are traveling in France and are spending a few days in the area. We walked through a few markets, then up and down the river, a little on both sides. We were blessed with hot, sunny weather, in the 80s. I think the only birds I saw downtown were pigeons and house sparrows. I shot plenty of sidewalk weeds as we walked, mostly old friends like Canada thistle and lamb's quarters, and perhaps a little mugwort. But also some new ones I'll have to look up. A delightful day, all in all.
Displaying turkeys in October? What were they thinking? Oh. That's right--turkeys don't think.
10-15-17. State Route 28, Bound Brook, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 137.75 miles total
Categories: unintentional plants, insects, blooming, fruiting
I walked along the edge of the highway and down the ramp to the interstate, then a little way into the woods. It's a very junky area, and almost all invasives. Surprises included groundsel tree and seaside goldenrod, even though we're over an hour from the coast. They'd also planted fragrant sumac by the interstate.
10-15-2017 - 4.75 miles, 111.75 total. Hiked up Snake Mountain, plus a little walking on the road since we had to park a ways away. Been here lots of times so didn't add everything, just a few things I figure I may not have gotten before or looked interesting. There were some huge trees along the road, would be fun to walk more on that road and iNat that, but not with a toddler - too much traffic. As usual Holly did well with hiking, probably did about a mile of the trail. I was pretty low energy due to having a cold.
Also got some road observations but won't add to this project since i wasn't walking :)
10-16-17. Kantor Park, Gillette, NJ 0.75 miles today, 138.5 miles total.
Categories: animals, fall color, fruiting, flowering, unintentional plants
This was a ball field next to a flood plain swamp. I went quite a way before I found my obligatory burning bush. There was a willow herb right by the street, which was a surprise. A chipmunk posed nicely for me. Lots of pretty fall colors though we are not yet near peak. I was impressed with the number of native shrubs: two viburnums, a dogwood, winterberry. And the most heavily fruiting crabapple I can remember seeing.
10-17-17. Sons of Liberty Farm, Liberty Corner, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 139.5 miles total.
Categories: fall color, fruit, flowering, unintentional plants
This small, undeveloped park is located behind a hand-painted sign quoting the Pledge of Allegiance (that has stood on a corner not far from me for the 25 years I've lived here). Next door, behind a stockade fence, is a nudist colony. Behind that a retirement village and a school for autistic children. The park itself did not look promising, being dry woods overgrazed by deer. It turns out it was a farm that used to be owned by an extremely eccentric guy who would quote the constitution at every town council or school board meeting for over half a century. There was a man-made pond on the property completely surrounded by common reed, with about four red cedars and one tiny willow and not a single other species no matter how small that I saw. A few dragonflies. There was a linden viburnum, which I don't see often, and jet bead, only the third patch I've found. and at the very end of the trail, wild comfrey in fruit, which I've never seen (and iNat was able to ID for me, from the dried leaves). It has really neat looking four-parted burs.
ha! sounds like an interesting cultural history if not the most exciting biologically
10-17-17. CENBG grounds, Gradignan, France. 2.5 miles today, 604.5 miles total.
Categories: invasives, oaks, new faces, fungi
This is our intensive week with the particle accelerator in the lab. The beam went down in the afternoon, so I got to take a break from the control room and explore the grounds around the lab. It's all woods beyond the immediate surroundings of the chateau, with a few trails running through, perhaps for maintaining the perimeter fence. I took every one of them. I was glad to see numerous fallen trees in the woods, tipovers, fallen branches with lots of moss and liverworts on the rotting wood. Still, there is still the flavor of "park" rather than "wild", more "city" than "forest". I found 3 kinds of oaks, the white oak (Quercus robur) that I've been seeing everywhere, and 2 kinds of red oaks, that sure look like Q. rubra and Q. palustris, but we'll have to see what the local experts say. I found some fresh scat that looks like deer poop. The ground cover is all ivy, Hedera helix, with cyclamen sprinkled in here and there. I sure hope I get to see a real forest while I'm here. I'm beginning to doubt the very concept of native plants here. But the bryophytes--I can see how one could get very excited about bryophytes in suburban France!
10-18-17. Château Moulerens, Gradignan, France. 0.7 miles today, 605.2 miles total.
Categories: trees, invasives, unfamiliar plants
I did a little birding in the yard this morning, then cut through the Château Moulerens grounds next door (the woods that abuts our yard) to see if the birds were out on the soccer fields in the park. When we walked past the fields 2 weeks ago, they were hopping with wagtails and pipits as well as the usual pigeons and magpies. But the fields were quiet today. I guess either the timing or weather was wrong this morning. Except, when I turned around, I found a falcon on a soccer goal post. Not much going on for plant diversity in these woods, but I'm slowly learning the tree species (thanks, Sara, for the help with the bald cypress!). No new flowers today, but I did find some more devil's fingers, a.k.a octopus stinkhorn fungus.
10-18-17. Washington Valley Firehouse, Warren, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 140 miles total.
Categories: fall color, fruiting.
I walked in the closed flea market area behind our fire house. They have a persimmon that I've never caught in fruit before. Surprises were a hazelnut and an entirely adelgid-free (as far as I could tell) hemlock in a hedgerow (I don't think they spray it; I'm baffled by the lack of bugs.
I love your stinkhorns; so weird looking!
you're running a particle accelerator too? wow
10-19-17. North Cove Park, Wayne, NJ. 0.75 miles today, 140.75 miles total.
Categories: fall color, fruiting. blooming, unintentional plants.
I ended up having to drive over 90 miles today, running errands (none of which involved my daughter or PT), but stopped by this ball field near railroad tracks and a fenced-off artificial pond, in a section of the state I don't often get to. I found out later it used to be part of the Morris Canal. There was common buckthorn, which is one of the few invasives that's far more common up by you all in VT than down here by me. There was hackberry, Chinese bushclover, and some interesting oak galls, none of which I see often, and an interesting little white flower that when I got it home and blew it up turned out to just be a beaten-up aster. I didn't know until I opened the files that I had a great big black speck on the lens for all the pics. Luckily not quite in the center, but still, annoying.
Someone stopped me while I was walking and asked what I was up to. I get a lot of speculative looks, but it's very rare for someone to actually talk to me about it. He was offended by the quantity of Phragmites in the area. I wanted to point out that about 75% of the biomass he could see (it's a junky area) was invasive. But he didn't linger.
10-19-17. Parc de Mandavit, Gradignan, France. 2 miles today, 607.2 miles total.
Categories: trees, flowers, invasives, fungi, birds
I got a break from the running the particle accelerator to join the monthly town nature walk in Mandavit Park. I was late leaving the lab, so I ran the whole 2.5 miles to the park. I took 2 wrong turns and got there 20 minutes late. It took me another 10 minutes to find the group in the park. I don't know anything about the guy who was leading the walk, but he was very good and quite knowledgeable. He stopped to point out a chestnut gall and an oak gall. I had already seen the oak gall around, but now I'll be on the lookout for more of the chestnut galls. He also gave us a long lecture on anastamosis (anastamosis in French), and showed us an oak attached to a pine and two intertwined beeches. There were about 15 other people on the walk, all seniors, and all extremely interested in every word the guide said. I didn't understand much, but it was a good French lesson and a nice break from the lab.
10-20-17. Gradignan, France. 2.4 miles today, 609.6 miles total.
Categories: birds
Not much time for plant collecting today, but I managed to shoot a few birds while I was out running errands. In the yard, I saw a green woodpecker picking worms or bugs out of the grass. I also figured out that the birds whose alarm calls sound just like our robin alarm calls are European blackbirds. That make sense since our American robins and European blackbirds are both thrushes of about the same size.
A persimmon? In fruit! No, I would not know that one! Totally cool! And I can very much relate to the story about Phragmites. Funny how everyone has a plant that gets on their nerves. Or maybe everyone needs such a plant to make them more aware of what is and isn't growing around them.
10-21-17. Behind Acme, Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 141 miles total.
Categories: unintentional plants
I've been feeling like I've already walked everywhere worth walking that's anywhere near me, so I'm going to go through the alphabet to pick a place to photograph (unless I'm near something special). Today was "A" which was remarkably hard, but the Acme supermarket worked. The main surprise for me was how much more thoroughly weeded and mulched the area behind the grocery store was than the last time I looked here. Plant-wise there was everlasting pea, which I don't see often. And a staghorn sumac was really pretty in its fall colors.
If I had to pick a plant to rant about there being "too much" of it around I'd probably choose mugwort over Phragmites. Possibly my least favorite plant, though the brownish flowers are interesting in macro photos at this time of year, and sometimes the leaves turn red. But they make such monocultures, and they are EVERYWHERE.
I just learned persimmon last year, and I only know of about 4 locations. I knew they were ripe now and went to the firehouse specifically to see them.
I'm not sure I'd know a robin's alarm call, though surely I've heard it. Yesterday my husband asked me what the chirping noise was that we could hear in our house with the windows closed and we finally figured out it was a chipmunk calling. But I'm terrible with bird calls.
10-22-17. Bois de Cotor, Gradignan, France. 2.5 miles today, 612.1 miles total.
Categories: trees, new plants, birds
The particle accelerator was down today, so I took advantage of the unexpected free time for a stroll through the Cotor woods. I think its an abandoned chateau property that runs behind the tall wooden fence by the ring road around Bordeaux. I was hoping to collect some chestnuts now that I've finally figured out how to cook them. But I think maybe chestnut season has suddenly slipped by, since the chestnuts shells on the ground are now old and brown looking. I only found 2 trees that were bearing, but I didn't venture much into the woods. I'll save the trails in this park for another day. I found lots of pokeweed, Virginia creeper, and black locust, which wouldn't be out of place back home, but are quite out of place here. I also found out that the oaks that look just like red oak are red oak, and also invasive. Basically, if it's native back home, and I see it here, it's invasive. And then there is the English ivy, which covers everything everywhere. That's got to be invasive. But the fun plant of the day was a persimmon, in full fruit. It was in someone's yard, so I'll have to mark it as cultivated. It was still a first for me, though. I never would have recognized it from the leaves, but the fruit was quite unmistakable.
A robin's alarm call sounds like annoyed muttering, quite loud, quite common. Sit in the yard a bit and you'll hear it. I've struggled to learn bird calls because I have so much trouble seeing birds. Knowing the calls helps spot the birds quite a bit. And I'm finding as I travel that if I hear a familiar-sounding call, I can often guess what family the strange bird is from.
Your idea of working through the alphabet to choose new places sounds like a lot of fun. I so enjoy vacant lots parking lot weeds!
10-22-17. Brookside Drive, Bridgewater, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 142 miles total.
Categories: birds, fruit, flowering, unintentional plants
Looking for a place with "B" gave me the opposite problem from yesterday; this time there were too many choices. But I spent long enough dithering that I needed to choose something nearby and went for a "double" B, basically on the other side of the block on which I live. It's a very narrow road with no shoulder, and just past where a trail connects with the road, so in all the years I've lived here I've never actually walked this little bit. The big surprise was Akebia quinata, all over both sides of the road for about 100 feet. Only the fourth time I've ever found it in NJ. I think it's very pretty, though so very invasive.
For once I found more vertebrates than invertebrates, I guess it really is moving on toward winter (though we've not yet had our first frost).
I still get flummoxed by persimmon leaves. This summer I've learned to check the bark, which is very like flowering dogwood. Flowers and fruit make them a whole lot easier. The lot where I found the persimmon last week has tons of red maple, with several shades of yellow-leaved trees in front, and just today it all started to turn. One of my favorite sights.
10-22-2017 - 2.25 miles, 114 total. We all still have this cold, so haven't been too energetic lately. Yesterday was mostly a yardwork day but got most of the remaining wood stacked. Today we went on a walk on the funny part of the long trail in Bolton Flats. Checked out the neat new-ish foot bridge. The best things we saw were the bridge and sweeping vies of both sides of the mountains, where there was past-peak but still good foliage. (Just a few miles east it's all but done). However, it was neat to see a stand of bitternut hickory, edge of its range, and was very vibrant yellow color. Also found a burr oak but it may have been planted. Looped up and around by Bolton Notch too. The sugar maples there are prettier than ours were. Basically anywhere else had better foliage than Montpelier this year.
10-23-17. Gradignan, France. 1.3 miles today, 613.4 miles total.
Categories: unintentional plants, birds
I had a good time watching birds in the yard this morning. As soon as I opened the door to go out, 2 gray herons swooped in low. I think they may have been perched on the roof overhead. They flew off, but one came right back and posed briefly in the tree overhead. Then they scooted off to the woods nearby where I could hear them screeching, just out of sight. Then a flock of collared doves and some smaller birds came in fast all disorganized, going every which way, followed close behind by a hawk/falcon of some sort. I got the picture, so hopefully, someone can tell me what it was. Those were the two highlights of the session, but there was lots of action in the yard all morning.
After lunch, I went into town to re-provision, but my timing was off by 20 minutes for the shop opening times, so I had some time to kill. Perfect--what an opportunity to chase urban weeds and bryophytes! The highlights of the day were not 1 but 2 unintentional tomato plants in the debris at the edge of a parking lot and what looked exactly like an unintended broccoli plant on a curb. I found some flowering weeds as well and 3-4 types of moss.
The funny part of the long trail, Charlie? How funny? I need to get out there to see the hickory.
it's just funny because it's a flat trail wandering through fields. Rather than being on ridges and stuff. Kinda like some of the east montpelier trails. It goes through a farm field with chickens.
10-23-17. Cliff to William section of Peter's Brook Park, Somerville, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 142.5 miles total.
Categories: fruiting, fall color, flowering, unintentional plants.
I knew I was going to be in Somerville for an appointment and so looked for a "C" I'd not been on, and found this lovely park along a bit of a brook. The park was mowed but the brook banks were wild and had lots of plants. Most interesting were several clusters of unfamiliar bright orange fungi in the lawn.
I don't recall ever hiking on a trail through chickens, that would definitely amuse me!
I've seen unintentional tomatoes before, but never unintentional broccoli, how cool!
10-24-17. Gradignan, France. 4.3 miles today, 617.7 miles total.
Categories: trees, woody plants, new flowers, birds
Celebrated the end of our lab week by taking a nice long walk after lunch. I followed the Chemin de Moulins through several parks that were underestimated on the map. That is, the wooded areas seemed to extend quite a bit further than the map led me to believe. Nice! The stretch along the river had plenty of oaks (Q. robur) and maritime pine. The understory was filled with Hedera helix, as usual, and butcher broom, with plenty of bamboo mixed in. I came to a pond, where there was the obligatory mallard. And a Eurasian moorhen as well, which I guess is also common around here, but it's only the second one I've ever seen. I chased a dragonfly around the pond, a blue and green skimmer. I also found a few ripe strawberries in a gutter patch.
I definitely have to try that flat Long Trail section. Who woulda thunk?
10-24-17. Delaware and Raritan Canal, Somerset, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 143 miles total
Categories: fall color, fruiting, animals, unintentional plants
For letter "D" I figured I'd walk out to the very end of the Delaware Canal where it dumps into the Raritan. I managed to squeeze my walk in between downpours. This is a pretty urban area, and parking was interesting, but there was a nice, weed-covered embankment in the crumbling parking lot, and the tow path itself is nice and diverse. I found mallards today, too, but no other birds that I managed to photograph. I found winged (shining) sumac and thought to myself that I virtually never see all three of the weedy tree sumacs together, and then promptly found smooth and staghorn. But the highlight of the day was Scrophularia marilandica, late figwort, which I've never seen (and has only been posted once from NJ).
10-25-17. Parc de Bois de Cotor Laburthe, Gradignan, France. 3.4 miles today, 621.1 miles total.
Categories: trees, woody plants, new plants, gutter weeds, birds
Took a walk after lunch towards the Cotor park again, this time following along the wall on the edge of the ring road for quite a ways. I came across a small industrial park up against the ring road, with plenty of road weeds and great weed diversity. I even found some viper's bugloss, my first here. Then I headed into the woods where there was much less diversity. Just Hedera everywhere, with a little cyclamen and honeysuckle mixed in. In the middle of the woods was a gigantic oak tree. I don't know how many dba, but I bet it would have taken 4 people to hug it all the way around.
Nice sumac triple header!
10-25-17. Elks Preserve, Hopewell, NJ; Morristown and Erie RR, Cedar Knolls, NJ; Sylva Lake, Ewing, NJ. 1.5 miles today, 144.5 miles total.
Categories: unintentional plants, insects, moss, fungi, fruiting, flowering
I had to do the 185-mile, take-my-daughter-to-the-surgeon trek again today. Letter "E" so I left early and walked at the Elks Preserve. Flat and deer infested, almost-pure-red-maple woods. This is south of me, and the maples were only starting to turn. There was very little underbrush (thanks to the deer) but tons of moss, lichen and some fungi on fallen wood.
We got to the doctor early, and my daughter had homework to do, so I explored the back of the parking lot. I later found out it was another "E": the Morristown and Erie RR embankment. This was mostly Phragmites, with a patch of Japanese knotweed being completely overgrown by porcelainberry (I'm not sure if this is good or bad). There was also Chinese silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis), which I don't often see escaped.
I dropped her back at college a bit earlier than I expected, and I really needed to stretch, so I parked not entirely legally and walked along one of the ponds on campus (which is in Ewing, NJ, my third "E"). The entire pond edge on the campus side was covered in 6-inch tall poison ivy, the purest patch I have seen in a while. I can just picture some kids wanting to sit by the lake on the first hot day in spring, before everything leafs out, and getting their legs covered in poison ivy (having done something very similar when I was 22). Otherwise there were typical disturbed and water edge species, and lovely views of the fall foliage reflected in the pond.
I don't think I've ever come upon a tree that would take four people to hug it, except in preserves for that purpose (like in the redwoods in CA). Very neat.
10-26-17. Mandavit Park, Gradignan, France. 3.7 miles today, 624.8 miles total.
Categories: birds, trees, woody plants, fungi, weeds
My husband and I rode bikes out to Mandavit Park this afternoon and then walked most of the perimeter of the park. Last week I made 2 wrong turns trying to find the park. This week we only made one wrong turn, and we were on bikes, so it was OK. It's the busy 5-way rotary that gets so confusing. We were both delighted by the extent and wildness of the park. Here we are in suburban France, in a well-populated part of southern Europe, and yet the park trails really felt completely wild, more wild than other park I've been to in Europe, even the national parks. (Well, not all of Europe--certainly the areas in northern Lapland were wild, but they weren't wooded since they were above the tree line.) We found ourselves deep in a chestnut grove this afternoon, and succeeded in filling our pockets with fresh wild chestnuts. The plant diversity in the chestnut grove wasn't very rich--basically, it was just Hedera helix, butcher's broom, and gorse. But here and there a few other plants popped up, like heather or cherry laurel. The big find of the day was a medlar tree deep in the woods, in full fruit.
Funny--it seems that everyone here has a sweet gum tree in their yard for fall color (the next mega-invasive is my prediction). But I haven't seen any red maples. Surely, they would grow here. I wonder why they haven't been similarly introduced.
10-26-17. Mattano Park, Elizabeth, NJ and Woodbridge River, Woodbridge, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 145 miles total.
Categories: fruiting, flowering, unintentional plants.
I had to be in Elizabeth (25 minutes away) today, so I looked for someplace with an "F" to walk. The closest I got was Fifth Ave. and Fifth St., the corner of which is Mattano Park. They'd just "improved" the riverbank here, by removing every speck of vegetation and laying down straw and grass seed, but farther back in the park there were the usual damp and neglected area weeds. There was an aster-type plant I didn't recognize and several different Amaranthus/ Atriplex/ Chenopodium -type plants.
I drove around the corner to another section of the park (without any "F" affiliation) where the Elizabeth River is about to run into the Newark Bay, and came across a sign warning that after heavy rains the water here may be mixed with raw sewage. Lovely. I found cut-leaved blackberry which I've only seen twice before (which are the only posts of it from NJ).
I then had to pick up my daughter from school and the GPS sent me by way of the NJ Turnpike. So I stopped at a rest area that bordered a salt marsh off the Woodbridge River (once again, no "F's"), and I found ground elder, which I've only seen once before. I thought I'd hit a starling with my car, but was relieved to see it was just discarded food that had crunched under my tires, no dead bird. Not that the world really needs more starlings, but still...
I never really had a good idea what gorse looked like, but I've been learning from your pictures.
10-27-17. Gradignan, France. 3.8 miles today, 628.5 miles total.
Categories: birds, woody plants, unintentional plants, street weeds
I headed up the street a ways to see if I could find the park where we saw the free-range sheep last week (municipal grass mowers?). I did find it and walked around it. The neighborhood around the park seemed to be the rough side of town, judging by the nasty dogs. Funny how that's a universal. When people don't have anything, they get dogs to guard it. I actually got chased by 2 dogs, but fortunately they were tiny ankle biters who couldn't keep up with my walking pace. And the other dogs were behind fences. The park was nothing special, but I did find a new oak, one with entire unlobed leaves. I'll try and look that one up. The real find was a few blocks away, a tiny park with a tiny pond. The pond had some mallard ducks, some escaped domestic ducks, and some mallard-domestic hybrids. And some other big-beaked birds that might be greenfinches (I'll wait for the experts to name them). The pond was half full of pond lilies in full bloom and some other water plants.
In the evening, my husband and I headed around the block for a "gospel concert". It was listed as starting at 6:00 pm, but that was African time, so we took the opportunity to wander around the edge of the woods before the event, an African evangelical revival service.
I never knew gorse either, except from Winnie-the-Pooh. I was actually a bit excited to meet it for the first time and finally understand why falling into a gorse bush would be a bad thing.
10-28-17. Gradignan, Frane. 3.5 miles today, 632 miles total.
Categories: birds, woody plants, street weeds, unintentional plants, butterflies.
Walked to the farmers' market this morning with my husband, and then through town to do some errands. We paused to chase butterflies on Main St (actually, Rue de Charles de Gaulle). Then we admired some street weeds in the gutter, prostrate amaranth, spearmint, and climbing nightshade. But around here, admiring street weeds also requires looking up to count the puffs of mistletoe in the dying trees.
In the afternoon, I rode my bike out to the northwest of Gradignan, then walked around to explore the city limits. I finally found out where they keep the supermarkets in town--in the industrial parks on the edge of town. Unfortunately, there was a paucity of weeds in the parking lots. There was a giant supermarket that was fenced off. Just beyond the fence, I could see a whole field of jimsonweed coming along nicely. I did manage to spot a few interesting flowering mints near the supermarkets. And in back of an industrial building just over the town line was a tiny fenced in dried up wetland with horsetails growing in it, probably E. fluviale by the looks.
10-28-17. Great Swamp, Harding Twp. NJ. 1.0 miles today, 146 miles total
Categories: fall color, fruiting, blooming
Today may be the most perfect day of fall. Sunny, 60s, and the leaves approaching peak. Letter "G" was for Great Swamp, so I walked at this national wildlife preserve near us, but from a parking lot I've not visited before. I missed the blaze for the trail I'd meant to take that would have made a nice loop and ended up going out and back instead. Lots of beautiful leaves, lots of moss. Not a lot of surprises. I did run into someone from the Hash House Harriers, a running group I belonged to long ago, who was laying a trail with spots of flour for this afternoon's run.
I noticed today that I made it onto I-91 in my virtual walk to my sister's in Boston. Nearly to Hartford. She is moving some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the new house is exactly the same distance from me as the old one was.
10-28-2017 - 2 miles, 116 total. Just finally fighting off that cold, so still low energy. Still have some throat issues but hopefully mostly gone. Anyway, we walked up the East Montpelier trail from cherry hill road to the broken bridge. Been there many times so didn't add much, but did find a few little oaks i hadn't seen before and noted a few late-blooming flowers.
10-28-17. Rando #4, Gradignan, France. 3.2 miles today, 635.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, woody plants, flowers, fungi
My husband and I rode our bikes to Mandavit Park again today, this time to walk Randonee #4. This self-guided walk was supposed to follow many of the same trails that we took through Mandavit on our walk last Thursday. But there are hundreds of trails through the park, and even using a cell phone for a GPS reality check, we had a lot of trouble following the route the brochure recommended. We came out into the Malartic community much earlier than expected and poked around there a bit. According to the brochure, the Malartic neighborhood was a planned community built in the 1970s, a very dense residential district with row houses, postage stamp yards (on the edge of the city's largest park), a day care, elementary school, and middle school, and bus stops. And the streets, as with any development, are named after the plants they flattened. Or, that was our assumption. The assumption has worked other places in town, like on Rue des Erables (Maple St), and Rue des Saules (Willows). We looked up the name of the street we were walking on--Rue des Capucines. Nasturtiums. The very thought of plowing down a whole field of nasturtiums to plant houses...
Very few plants in Malartic, hardly even any sidewalk weeds. And I didn't shoot many plants in Mandavit Park since there are so few species there and I think I've seen most of them by now. Our route took us from Malartic to Lauzerne Park again. That's where I found the maidenhair spleenwort a few weeds ago. Not much new to see there, either. Our last park on today's route was Parc de Moulineau and the Maison de la Nature (closed). Imagine our surprise to find free range peacocks in this park, and penned wallabies and emus. A downtown municipal zoo--who knew? Some interesting plants along the river through this park, including a large patch of Himalyan jewelweed (thanks for telling me about that one, Charlie!) and a persimmon in a vacant lot in full fruit (and thanks for the persimmon heads-up, Sara!).
Our hiking group tried that trail in East Montpelier right before we left town. They liked it so much, they went 2 weeks in a row. The favorite sight of the hike was the nurse log near the bridge.
10-29-17. Behind Home Goods, Bridgewater, NJ, 0.25 miles today, 146.25 miles total.
Categories: unintentional plants
Pouring rain today. But I had errands to run and decided to do the parking lot edge behind the only "H" on my list. Not many surprises here. A buckthorn which I don't see often, and a callery pear with huge fruit.
Erika, i know exactly which nurse log you mean, i saw one full of white pine and hemlock. I probably got most of the vascular plants there (not that you can't get them again) but the area seems exemplary for mosses too, at least near the bridge on the seepy slopes, you might want to go back and look for more mosses if you haven't done that. There's also a neat patch of Crataegus that i didn't try to get to species, would be fun to try to figure out. And a nice long linear seep just off the trail near its lower part that would be fun to explore (land is posted no hunting but not no-inaturalist :) )
10-30-17. Gradignan, 3 miles today, 638.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, woody plants, gutter weeds, flowers
Biked out to the western edge of town again today, then walked south across the river to explore a new part of the city. Initially, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of street weeds. But then I came to a block that was infested with an unfamiliar horsetail, a straight thin one that wasn't very tall or bushy. There was an interesting vacant lot with a lot of invasive trees (black locust and box elder), posted with the sign that it is city property looking for a developer. I walked back through the river park and found an abandoned greenhouse near the river. I had high hopes of finding some odd plants around the greenhouse, but mostly it was all covered with Hedera helix, with a few pokeberries scattered about. Then, on the metal workings of the dam below an old millpond I found a polypody fern.
10-31-17. Gradignan, 2 miles today, 640.2 miles total.
Categories: birds, street weeds, unintentional plants, woody plants
I had an hour or so to fill downtown between errands, so I took a walk through the neighborhood between the farmer's market and the cemetery. I found yet an another forest patch that isn't market on the maps. The way I went in was on a public road, but when I came out, I had to cross a private property sign from the back. I'm not sure where the property became private--maybe just the last 20 feet between a clearly public trail and an apartment building. There were plenty of weeds to explore along the trail, including a small purple geranium and an unfamiliar nightshade, both in bloom. I spent Sunday studying my tree book, where I found out that there are not 1 but 2 common pines in the area. The new one that I am trying to learn is called parasol pine, Pinus pinea. It looks a bit like a red pine, but it has a distinctive rounded thick top. I spent quite a bit of time looking around for the parasols, and I maybe found a few, but they were all likely planted since they were in yards. I walked through the cemetery and found a few mosses and lichens (nothing new) and a poplar sprouting through a plot. But cemeteries are very different here--no grass, no edges, and if the plot isn't well cared for, the town takes it back and sells it to someone else (I'm guessing). Only a few stones had mosses or lichens, and they all had warning signs from the town that they weren't being cared for so were in jeopardy.
10-30-17. Irishtown Park, Piscataway, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 146.75 miles total.
Categories: fruiting, fall color, unintentional plants.
Was looking for an "I" and found the back end of a park I"ve only been to once before. This is a suburban lawn-with-tall trees park so close to the neighbors that only one side had any wildness to it at all. No real surprises here; nothing I've not seen tons of elsewhere.
10-31-17. Elementary school, Warren, NJ. 0.25 miles today, 147 miles total.
Categories: lawn weeds
I was all set this morning: I was going to work out at the gym and then walk nearby, doing the weeds behind Joe's Pizza for my "J". But as I pulled into the gym lot someone ran a stop sign and hit my car. No one was hurt and the car still drives, but it took an hour to deal with. So much for walking. Instead I took some pictures of weeds on the way to my very last (and 32nd) school Halloween parade. (my daughter was a cat, very cute). Not much here, but some Chinese elm seedlings up against the school wall, which were interesting. The trees are rampant all along the main road here; nearly every yard has some.
I have several times found myself walking out past a no trespassing sign facing the other way, with no idea how I got onto the private land to begin with; always a little disconcerting.
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