April 1, 2018: Describe your walk by adding a comment below

4-1-18 Plumpton Park Zoo, Rising Sun, MD and Conowingo Dam, Darlington, MD. 1.75 miles today, 251.5 miles total.
categories: lawn weeds, birds, flowering
Headed to my husband's aunt's horse farm in MD, we stopped for the first time ever at the Plumpton Park Zoo. There were a lot of the usual lawn weeds, with deadnettle, speedwell, chickweed, and bittercress blooming. They also had bears and tigers, camel, giraffe, and a lot of alpacas, among other things.

After the zoo we stopped at the biggest hydroelectric dam on the Susquehanna River because it's a great place to see bald eagles (there were at least 4). There were also over a dozen cormorants that would fly up by the dam then float downstream then fly back.

4-3-18. Clover Hill Farm and Edgeley Grove Park, Fallston, MD. 1.0 mile today, 252.5 miles total
categories: green in winter, lichen.
I walked a half mile loop at my husband's aunt's farm and confirmed that she has Thlaspi alliaceum, a totally new-to-me invasive mustard in the Kentucky-Maryland area that I learned about on Friday. Next I walked with my 11-yer-old daughter on a trail created by Boy Scouts through the woods next to what might be the largest playground in Maryland. This was heavily wooded with a bit of swamp at the beginning (with seedbox). I found a cranefly orchid (just the leaf) and told my aunt I'd never found one in New Jersey. But I checked on iNat, and the farthest north observation of one on the east coast (in northern NJ) turned out to be mine. I have no memory of taking that picture!
We saw a red shouldered hawk today but didn't get a picture. I managed to convince our aunt that some of the crows she has are fish crows (by the call) but didn't get a picture. We saw a fox sitting out in a field and I didn't have my camera. A lot of missed shots. But my kids found me a lovely huge spider in the basement that I got a nice shot of, to make up for it.

4-4-18. Belfond, Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 2.7 miles today, 1002.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, prickly, Lepidoptera
I decided to head up to Les Anglais Rd this morning to see if I could find the grassland yellow-finches again. I think I saw some in about the same place as last time, but didn't really get a good photo. With ebird tracks, they prefer loops rather than out-and-backs, so I explored down a farm road from Les Anglais Rd, and it did indeed meet up with the trail up from the mill, so I was able to turn the walk into a loop and actually see a new section of trail as well. Along the way, I saw 3 mongoose today, but only got a photo of 1. Those little rascals are fast! The one I caught had a dead rodent (mouse?) in its mouth, but I don't think the prey is recognizable in my photo. For birds, I saw Carib grackles, common waxbills, bananaquits, purple-throated Caribs, black-faced grassquits, a spectacled thrush, a scaly-breasted thrasher, tropical mockingbirds, lesser Antillean bullfinches, cattle egrets, shiny cowbirds, and a common gallinule. No sign of the green heron or the snowy egret in the highway ditch. For prickly, I came up with Aroma, Cealsalpinia, 2 cacti (Acanthocereus tetragonus, Cereus hexagonus), and Jatropha,. I also found a new-to-me Ipomoea, an erect variety with a large flower. Or maybe it wasn't an Ipomoea but just looks like one.

4-5-18. Pointe-Marin, Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 3.4 miles today, 1006 miles total.
Categories: Birds, fruits
I headed out to the Club Med beach this morning, after first taking a brief tour around the cul-de-sacs of Belfond Heights (to see the common waxbills). After Club Med, I walked the rest of the Pointe-Marin beach on the beach road looking towards the water for good light. I spotted an eared dove on the top of the mast of the marooned boat on the beach. The eared dove is a first for me for this trip to Martinique. On the way back home from the beach I saw a small loud bird in a tree. No idea what it was--maybe a whiskered vireo. My birds of the day included 3 chickens (1 of which appeared to be a broody hen), 2 snowy egrets (out on the tip of the Club Med beach), 1 cattle egret, 2 green herons (no photos), 1 broad-winged hawk, dozens of Zenaida doves, 2 mangrove cuckoos (no photos), 1 purple-throated carib, 4 Antillean crested hummingbirds, lots of king birds, a spectacled thrush, a scaly-breasted thrasher, lots of tropical mockingbirds, bananaquits, grassquits, lesser Antillean bullfinches, carib grackles, 2 lesser Antillean saltators, and 2 shiny cowbirds. For fruits, I shot some Albizzia lebbeck pods, the small white-flowered weed with pods, a coconut on the Club Med beach (appears unintentional), and a seagrape on the Club Med beach. Another find out in the Club Med property were Grapsus grapsus crabs out of their holes and scurrying about at the dish cart area at the beachfront restaurant.

Congratulations on hiking to Arlington! It looks like we completed the first round of our "journeys" in the same week. Way to go! I'm not sure where I'm off to next, but I may as well keep walking or I'll never get there.

Good for you shooting the dead squirrel! Not pretty, but it's data, and a memorial to its brief life.

4-7-18. Bayshore, Hartshorne Woods, Sandy Hook, and Popamora Point, in Keensburg and Highlands, NJ. 2.0 miles today, 255.25 miles total.
Categories: shells, birds, lawn weeds, buds, fruit
I had so much fun today. I headed out toward Sandy Hook, but stopped first at Bayshore Waterfront Park, a public pier on the Sandy Hook Bay. It was cold, windy, and overcast, but you could see a nice view of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and some big warships at Naval Station Earle's pier. There's a huge pier here but it was too cold and windy for that to be appealing. Instead I started in the parking lot and found common stork's bill, a weed that is very common just barely to the south of my "mountains" but I never see at home. Then there was a little mustard-looking plant which I don't recognize that seems to be excreting salt on its leaves. Then on the beach there were two kinds of seaweeds (one was rockweed), a broken piece of horseshoe crab, about four clams, some slipper shells all piled on top of each other, and various other shells. Bird-wise only gulls.

Next was my original goal: Hartshorne Woods Park. There's a battery and old fort here, neither of which I saw. I was surprised at how junky the vegitation here was; it's supposed to be one of the last bits of the coastal forest in the Highlands, but it was mostly mugwort and black locust. Toward the end I got a glimpse of the holly and mountain laurel that should have been everywhere. There was an exciting big bird that turned out to be a turkey vulture, and a very still chipmunk that turned out to be a leaf. But I found early wintercress, which I don't see often and there was an interesting fungal thing, a raccoon track, and lots of (planted) Paulownia fruit, which were neat.

Next place I stopped was the closest section of Sandy Hook. There's a nice little salt-marshy dune thing on the bay side here that always has some birds, and this was no exception. There were brants and several pairs of mergansers (I'm not sure if common or red breasted, I'm not good enough to tell), male and female bufflehead, black backed gull, a crow, a flicker, a flock of mockingbirds (I've never seen them flock before) and a whole swirling mass of what turned out to be (I think) cedar waxwings (appropriately I spotted them while photographing a red cedar). Then there was an interesting aster-y plant that seems to be the first observation of Montauk daisy on iNat in NJ.

Finally I headed over to another cold and windy park on the Bay. There were similar shells to the first time and similar seaweed, but also razor clams, an interesting whelk-y thing, and blue mussles. There were lichen on fallen branches (I'd never noticed lichen down the shore before) and a little sand plant that I didn't recognize.

On the way down I passed roadkill and thought of you: a raccoon, a groundhog, a squirrel, several deer, and, most exciting, a coyote. I went back later to try to photograph the coyote but it was gone. Meanwhile the dead deer in our front yard continues to get dragged to a new spot each night by something large (we're thinking coyote; there are supposed to be a lot of them around). It's nearly all eaten; I may just bag the remains and put them out with the trash instead of waiting for the county to finally come collect it.

I'm starting to think about a research project for my walks this summer. I'm thinking of focusing on a select list of common non-native plants to compare their distribution across the landscape. To see if their distribution differs, and what factors might predict any differences in distribution. Especially factors that go beyond enumerating different types of disturbed habitats. I'm thinking that Japanese knotweed, for instance, sticks primarily to roads and waterways, but helleborine can be found in the deep woods. Red clover and dandelions in lawns, but where else? Any thoughts on this? Would you be interested in collaborating?

What do you think, @charlie?

This is a neat concept. Like the lesser celandine; we are so overwhelmed with it here, my first reaction was mapping all of it would be impossible, but then I remembered several wetlands without it and a number where I've seen a plant or two but not the usual masses; it would be fascinating to know why and how to predict whether a given area is likely to have it. Putting together a structure for such a project is daunting to me, but if you figure out how to set it up I'd be happy to participate.

4-8-18. Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 3.4 miles today. 1114.2 miles total.
Categories: Birds, lichens
I started off across Belfond Heights this morning, then up to the farm road. I followed the farm road out to the highway and back to Sainte-Anne. Instead of going straight back to Belfond, I looped into town for a fresh baguette since we were out of bread at the house. On the way back through town, I paused in the town center to count crabs on the dock. Out on the farm road, I caught the grassland yellow-finch singing in a bush, and I even tried recording the song. I don't know if I was successful yet. Other notable birds included a green heron, a common gallinule, and a flock of common waxbills. I think I've seen common waxbills almost every day here, but they're listed as uncommon on eBird. I think that's more a reflection of where other people are doing their birding, since the grassland yellow-finch is listed as rare. I'd say the grassland yellow-finch is perhaps uncommon, but certainly not rare since even as a birding beginner, I know of 2 places in Sainte-Anne where they are resident and you're likely to see them if you know how to look. But I bet regular birders just don't walk agricultural fields very often. I think most birders in Martinique are more interested in shore birds and water birds. On my way back to Belfond I got a glimpse of a bright red bird, sort of like a scarlet tanager. If it was red, there is only one thing it could be--a red avadavat. I wish I had been able to get a photo to get it confirmed here. But I counted it on eBird as a red avadavat anyway, since I was pretty sure that was what it was. Red avadavats are listed as uncommon on eBird but not rare. The last one reported here in Martinique was in 2015, on the northern part of the island. On iNaturalist, there are no observations from this hemisphere (the bird is introduced to Martinique). While walking, I kept an eye out for lichens. I found some scalies on tree trunks on the first part of the farm road. Maybe one was a script lichen. I searched and searched for lichens on rocks. Finally, downtown, I found a scaly patch of yellowish stuff on an old cement wall. Most of what I see here on cement is biofilm.

Great news on the shell find! My mother has been collecting shells on the beach here. I should go through her collection. She even found a few live specimens.

4-8-18. Etra, Perrineville, and Assunpink Lake Parks, Monmouth County, NJ. 1.0 mile today, 256.25 miles total.
Categories: lawn weeds, lichen, aquatic plants and animals
I drove down to Assunpink Lake today, but on the way passed some men fishing in Etra Lake. There was a pull-out with a picnic table, so I stopped. It was red maple, black locust and sweetgum over lawn, with some plants at the water's edge: swamp rose, purple loosestrife, a skunk cabbage. The edge of the water looked like crumbled blacktop, but eventually I realized it wasn't macadam, it was water chestnuts! I've never seen the fruit in real life before, but here it covered the edge of the little lake for a good six inches. The neatest fruit, like little caltrops, but so, so invasive. There was also a huge hornet nest someone had (presumably) knocked off a branch, all broken on the ground. And there were spatterdock risomes floating on the surface of the water, nearly as wide around as my wrist. I'd never seen them before, either. Finally, I found what I assume are Asian clams, though I'll have to get an expert to confirm it for me. This unplanned stop had the most interesting variety of the day.

Next I pulled off at the Rocky Brook Trail, along a farmed field. There was a lot of Whitlow grass, dandelion, and chickweed and bittercress blooming, plus shepherd's purse and evening primrose rosettes. Beside the field were sweetgum, red maple, black locust, oak.

Finally I got to my original destination: Rising Sun Lake. I really wanted to pee, and as there were no porta-potties I had just found what looked like the perfect spot, when another car pulled in right in full view. So much for that! The lake was pretty but it was windy, and I'd forgotten to bring a coat. The only birds were geese and a vulture. There were little minnows. I have exactly one fish observation on iNat, so I photographed them; we'll have to see if anyone can get me farther than "fish".

I found more of the Asian clam things and what I call a Chinese mystery snail (but I may be wrong on that one, too). Plants were mostly mown grass with bittercress and evening primrose, some red maple on the edges, some reed and cattail.

Next I was headed to my daughter's college, but on the way I stopped beside the road (to actually pee sucessfully, yay!) and found some lichen and a mushroom on maple, birch and black locust. There was also a dead robin in the woods, and a hole in a bank with the musty smell of fox (I hope) (or maybe skunk) either way, I didn't see the animal.

Final stop was at the actual Assunpink Lake for which the wildlife area is named. The boat ramp had lots of alder with tongue galls. There was whitlow grass all over the parking lot, and in another section tons of blooming ivy-leaved speedwell. And there was a willow all covered in "pussies".

As to invasives: I've only run into helleborine up by my daughter's camp in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, so I'd only be up that way twice next summer (dropping off and picking up). But don't feel you have to pick only invasives we both have. Here (I hope) is the list of invasive species the NJ Invasive Species Strike Team is following: http://www.njisst.org/fact-sheets.htm

If you do shells, remember to get both sides; I've been scolded many times for only doing one or the other.

4-9-18. Walker Ave. Wetlands, Wayne, NJ. 0.5 mile today, 256.75 miles total
Categories: bark, buds, green in winter, animals
I have been many times up to Wayne to pick up materials from my CPR training center, but never realized that if I just continued down the road through the light industrial center I'd end up at an impoundment off the Pompton River. There were a pair of agitated geese guarding the parking area, but they only hissed at me.

The lack of herb layer vegitation here was pronounced. There was some grass, some mugwort, a few clumps of a sedge, a small patch of stinging nettle and some moss. That was absolutely it. No lawn weeds. Nothing. Very few shrubs: some multiflora rose, some spicebush, some blackberry, a little poison ivy. The trees were mostly red maple, sycamore and sweetgum, but there were some willows and elms in bloom, some river birch and one cottonwood. I spotted a bird a bit bigger than a sparrow with a black cap, but I never got close enough to tell what it was.

But the highlight of the trip was a muskrat! I'd only just read yesterday that muskrats swimming look like small beavers but their back and tail breaks the water surface and that's just what I saw. But it was through the vegetation and very quick, and I didn't even get a blurry picture of it. Very disappointing.

One other neat find was spring peepers. I don't hear them often any more and these were the first of the year for me. I recorded them with my phone, now I just need to figure out how to post that!

back in Vermont the phenology moved forward somewhat in late March with a few crocuses and snowdrops but it hit the brakes and isn't progressing any more. too cold. 19 this morning similar to most nights thus far in April.Maybe some light snow this morning then some rain. Finally later this week it will get a little warmer so more crocuses, silver maple flowers, willows etc maybe.

is it wrong that my first thought is see how many weird insects and birds you can find eating it? I kinda wish we had a deer carcass in our field except dead rotting animals plus little kids is a bad combination so probably better not.

Yeah it would be neat to have a game cam on it. Weird that you keep finding dead deer but i guess that's what happens when they are overpopulated without enough natural predators.

Wow. I still can't believe such a delicious animal is invasive. We had a deer get hit by a car near our house once. The cops were out there and i did not go out towards them because i am from a city and you don't go towards the cops when their flashers were on. Later I learned that they had a deer that had been hit by a car very recently and were looking for someone to see if anyone wanted to take the meat. I had literally just taken a deer butchering seminar a few days before and if i had gone down i could have had a bunch of venison and not had to worry too much about not doing a good job butchering since the deer died anyway. Doh! Tried deer hunting several times since then but didn't get any deer, no doubt if I were further south I'd have found more than one to eat by now. Haven't had much time to put into deer hunting lately with our little one but at some point I will try again, or maybe Holly will want to learn.

Also... it's snowing again here.

4-10-18. Belfond, Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 3 miles today, 1120 miles total.
Categories: birds, trees
I walked through Belfond Heights today, then met up with my farmer friend and his daughter to walk the farm road loop. He mentioned to another friend along the way that my French has improved a lot over the last 4 weeks that we have been walking together. I think it has improved enough for me to realize that he may be speaking a mix of French and Creole, and that's one reason why I can barely understand a thing he says. On my husband's and my first trip to Martinique 3 years ago, we knew so little French that we never even guessed that the locals speak Creole, which is different from standard French. It was only on our second trip here that we heard the word "Creole" and began to realize that not everyone was speaking French. French and Creole were equally incomprehensible to us. Now at least we can understand some basic French. This morning we saw the usual Carib grackles, zenaida doves, bananaquits, black-faced grassquits, and Lesser Antillean bullfinches. A large white bird flew overhead and landed in a pasture. I thought it looked bigger than a cattle egret, but 3 cattle egrets followed it, so I called it a cattle egret. My farmer friend told me no, it was an egret (aigrette). Hmmm...I thought a couple of weeks ago he called a snowy egret (aigrette neiguse) a cattle egret (piqueboeuf). Or, what DID he say? He pointed out a number of trees for me and gave me the local names today, so those were good ones to shoot, like raisin de mer (sea grape), amandier (sea almond), and tamarisk (tamarind).

4-11-18. Caravelle Park Trails, Martinique. 8.3 miles today, 1128.3 miles total.
Categories: fruits, flowers, new plants, birds
I walked out to the Caravelle Lighthouse this morning from our Airbnb accommodations at the head of the trail. It was a gorgeous hike with views along the way over both the north and south sides of the Caravelle Peninsula. I saw several yellow warblers and heard many more. It almost sounded like May in Vermont with all the yellow warbler calls in the woods. I also saw several Lesser Antillean saltators and a mangrove cuckoo. Flying high over the peninsula was a swallow of some sort. I'm assuming (pending confirmation from the photographs) that it was a barn swallow since they are the most common swallows here. At the lighthouse, the views were terrific, from the very southern part of the island to the northern tip. And someone had left lots of food out on the rocks for the birds, which numerous Lesser Antillean bullfinches were gobbling up. I didn't see that many fruits on plants, but I saw several new plants in flower, plus some familiar plants from Sainte-Anne also in flower. Missing were the Gliricidia and white leadtree, which are everywhere in Sainte-Anne. Here there are a few tabebuia, some acacias and mimosas, plenty of senna. There was a knee-high plant with yellow flowers and trifoliate leaves, and an ankle-high plant with small purple flowers and trifoliate leaves, also, something that looked vaguely like forsythia, with small white flowers along stems with paired narrow leaves. I returned from the out-and-back hike for breakfast. Then after breakfast, my husband and I went out to explore more trails together. We returned to the lighthouse, then walked the trail down to the weather station at the very tip of the peninsula, then took the loop along the coast back to the main trail head again. It took us 4 hours all-in-all, and we didn't even complete the big trail that was listed as a 3.5 hour hike. I figured we'd be back in 2 hours. Good thing we were carrying plenty of water because it was rather warm. Along the coastal trail, there were portions that looked like the ideal habitat for white-breasted thrashers--low dense scrub forest. There were sign boards along the trail with photos of white-breasted thrashers, but I don't think we saw any real thrashers. We did see a largish bird that was dark on the back with a white belly, but I think it was a mangrove cuckoo. We'll have to wait until we get back to Sainte-Anne and I can download my photos to be sure. While we were out on the rocky cliffs, I got some photos of tiny trail side flowering plants. They looked kind of alpine-y, even if the climate is decidedly not alpine-y.

4-13-18. Anse Noir, Martinique. 0.3 miles today, 1131.8 miles total.
Categories: birds, Euphoribias, fungi, fllowers
My husband and I made one last trip out to Anse Noir this morning. We had the rainiest weather of our entire 3-month stay here, so we ended up sheltering under the tiny pavilion at the top of hill all morning. I did some bird-watching from the pavilion, then when the clouds cleared a little, I took a walk up the residential street between Anse Noir and Anse Dufour. I just about made it back to the pavilion when it started raining again. The rain didn't stop us from snorkeling, which is a big reason for visiting Anse Noir. We saw quite a lot of fish, but no turtles. In the afternoon, we snorkeled in Anse Dufour. Once again, fish and squid, but no turtles. We saw quite a few birds from the pavilion, including an American kestrel, 2 broadwing hawks, 4 magnificent frigatebirds, a black-whiskered vireo, a scaly-breasted thrasher, a least sandpiper, and all the usuals (Zenaida doves, Carib grackles, bananaquits, black-faced grassquits, Lesser Antillean bullfinches). On my little walk I looked long and hard for fungi, but the only ones I found were some scaly lichens on rocks. I also photographed some plants in flower, especially Euphorbias. I found 3 kinds of Euphorbias in a single lawn--asthma plant, painted spurge, and either hyssop or graceful spurge.

4-15-18. Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 2.6 miles today, 1136.6 miles total.
Categories: birds, prickly
We needed bread this morning, so I walked the highway loop into downtown Sainte-Anne to the bakery and back to Belfond via the beach. I find myself walking slower and slower through the stretch of road I call the Belfond connector. It runs between the beach road and the residential part of Belfond, cutting straight through 2 large tracts of mangrove swamp. In fact, as we recently learned, the fond in Belfond means bottom or back of the garden, so we're thinking maybe in our case it means beautiful swamp. Which must have been drained to build all the pretty residential streets and houses. But they left those big chunks of mangrove on the margins of the development, perhaps because those sections were too deep to drain. In any case, the birds seem to really love the mangrove, so the Belfond connector road is alive with lots of birds every morning. If only I could catch some with my camera. I think I caught a scaly-breasted thrasher along the road this morning--we'll see when I get a chance to download the photos. Other birds along the Belfond connector included some Lesser Antillean saltators, some common waxbills, and some bananaquits. No sign of the snowy egret along the highway this morning, but I finally found him or her in the ditch by the beach on my walk back home. I searched and searched for the common gallinules in the swampy cow pasture, but no luck. Several cattle egrets out there this morning, though. For prickly things I found an Acacia with threatening thorns, a Passiflora foetida with spiky-looking fruits, and a sand bur grass on the beach downtown. I looked for Grapsus grapsus crabs on the town dock, but the gendarmes were in the midst of arresting some ruffians on the dock, so I moved on without taking any photos.

4-16-18. Pointe Marin, Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 3.1 miles today, 1139.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, yellow
I walked out to Pointe Marin and Club Med this morning via Belfond Heights and the sewage treatment plant. Quite scenic, even if the sewage tanks were tumbling loudly. Out on the tank with the Lemna there was a spotted sandpiper pecking about. Just below the sewage treatment plant, in the mangrove swamp, I found 9 least sandpipers. Then out in Pointe Marin I saw 3 rock doves land on a roof. That would be trivial back home, but around here, they're rather uncommon, and I've never seen any in Sainte-Anne before. They were mostly white with very a few brown accents on their feathers. As I was walking through Club Med, near the beachside restaurant, I saw one more rock dove. It was sheltering on the roof of the restaurant between 2 roof seams, and it looked very bedraggled and wet. I think it was a rock dove, but I'm not entirely sure. This one was the standard slate blue dove with red eyes. Up on the end of the Pointe Marin beach I found a lone semipalmated plover, so all in all, the birding was rather good this morning. Between the white-crowned pigeon a few weeks ago and the rock doves today, I'm starting to think that the Sainte-Anne beach is an important catching point for birds blown out to sea. The water at the beach turned out to be quite choppy today, and later in the afternoon, we had a long thunderstorm, the first we've ever seen here. For yellow today, I shot the weeds growing in on the slope overlooking the mangrove swamp, the ones with trifoliate leaves and erect fruit pods. I also found an Atlantic ghost crab (yellow), a Tridax daisy, and a swarm of cotton stainer larvae in some seaweed beside a pair of yellow earplugs.

4-18-18 Chimney Rock Park, Martinsville, NJ. 0.5 miles today, 257.25 miles total
Categories: spring ephemerals
I'm out of the boot for my foot and itching to get out to photograph, so I went to the densest collection of wildflowers I know of. The ground is carpeted with yellow lesser celandine, which is pretty if hideously invasive. Trout lilies were just starting. Spring beauty was everywhere. I found two rue anemone, some very young Dutchman's breeches. There was cut-leaved toothwort in bud but not yet flower. A sedge something like Pennsylvania sedge was blooming. I found a tiny patch of ramps. And then there was bloodroot. Last year I walked in the early morning and it was never open when I passed; today it was wide, wide open. On the way back, some skunk cabbage, a single violet, and wild geranium leaves. Not far from here, in the past I've seen long spurred violets and a hepatica, and there should be virginia saxafrage, but I didn't see any today.

The camera I use for my long(ish) lens finally completely gave up the ghost (I've had to turn it on and off with pliers for months now) so I had the long lens on my "regular" camera and it came in handy, as I was able to catch a herd of deer across the brook, playing peekaboo with me among the trees (but I'm not used to how far I have to stand from flowers to focus on them).

4-19-18. Belfond, Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 2.6 miles today, 1147.8 miles total.
Categories: birds, trees
I was feeling a little off this morning, so I took a slow stroll back and forth through Belfond. I started from Belfond Heights, walked past the sewage treatment plant, took a spin out to Pointe-Marin, walked down the beach, back up the beach road, then back down the second beach road to Belfond again. The water was very high, both in the mangrove swamp and along the beach. We don't really get noticeable daily tides here, but the water levels do vary a bit at unpredictable-to-me times. There were no sandpipers at the sewage treatment plant or mangrove swamp today, but I heard a yellow warbler calling across the swamp. That's the first time I've heard one here in Belfond. On our 2nd day here in Sainte-Anne, back in January, I saw one in Anse Caritan. I didn't have a camera at the time, and I figured I'd see them often since it was just our 2nd day. But no, I haven't seen any at all, except for out on the Caravelle Peninsula, where they were everywhere. I also saw 2 of the rock doves in Pointe-Marin, the same ones I saw there the other day, one almost white with brown blotches, and one more brownish. On the way back through the Belfond connector road, I got good views of what I think was a black-whiskered vireo. For trees today, I tried to find specimens that I have not photographed before. I shot a Gliricidia, a portia tree on the beach, and a gray mangrove below the mangrove swamp.

Great to hear that you're able to get out a little again. Your flower photos are amazing! It looks like you're seeing some nice spring weather. Apparently, we still have a foot of snow in our driveway. This does not bode well.

4-21-18. Sainte-Anne, Martinique. 3.5 miles today, 1154.4 miles total.
Categories: birds, alternate leaves
I walked up the farm road this morning, up to Les Anglais Rd, down the trail to the mill and back to Belfond. I had excellent luck with the grassland yellow-finches this morning, spotting them along both the farm road and Les Anglais Rd, mostly because I was walking slowly and waiting for them to appear. The challenge is distinguishing them from the black-faced grassquits, which are live in about the same habit and fly in a similar manner. But the yellow-finches have a more buzzy call. I saw 2 on the farm road and probably 3-4 on Les Anglais Rd--it was harder to count them there because I was looking into the sun. I also saw the common gallinules in the swampy cow pasture and the snowy egret in the highway ditch. I my way back to Belfond I heard a yellow warbler in the mangrove swamp. I kept my eye out for any new plants today. I think there may have been a new weed with white flowers. I shot a couple of plants along the trail to the mill and even one along the highway.

4-20-18 Butler Rd. Park, Franklin Twp., NJ. 0.5 mile today, 27.75 miles total
Categories: spring ephemerals
My 14-year-old and I drove down to get my 19-year-old from college for the weekend, but stopped on the way at this little, damp, wooded natural area. We mucked about in the mud and found spring beauty, lesser celandine, and spicebush all blooming plus a closed up trout lily. White avens and kidney leaved buttercup were leafed out but not blooming.

4-23-18, Dorval, Quebec. 2.6 miles today, 1160 miles total.
Categories: birds, unintended plants
My husband and I took a short walk this morning in the neighborhood around our hotel in Dorval. We started out with a walk down Roy Ave., where we heard lots and lots of red-winged black birds. We turned the corner, and wouldn't you know it, we were right on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, on a road called Chemin Bord-du-Lac. After seeing only a couple of gulls and maybe a starling at breakfast, our little walk turned out quite bird-rich for an urban area. In addition to the red-wings and song sparrows, we saw several dozen gulls, and some chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, dark-eyed juncos, and northern cardinals. As well as lots of song sparrows, a few house sparrows, and some starlings. Unintended plants were thin on the ground, mostly because the snow has just barely melted, and hardly any weeds have popped up through the brown lawns so far. I found one weed I didn't recognize. It had roundish toothed leaves, sort of like a geranium. Maybe it was a planted geranium. Down along the river I found a stand of box elders on a property line that didn't look planted. And back at our hotel, I found several dandelions on a south facing wall in full bloom. Delightful!

4-25-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT. 3.4 miles today, 1167 miles total.
Categories: birds, 3-part leaves
It was raining moderately hard when I first went out this morning, and I had trouble hearing the birds over the din of the rain on my umbrella, or seeing them through the umbrella. Some loud calls stuck out though, like the white-throated sparrows and song sparrows. There was also a winter wren, and an irregular pecking/drumming that stopped, then started again. Eventually, I recalled the stop-and-start drumming as a yellow-bellied woodpecker. As I turned around to head back home, the rain let up to a light drizzle so I put my umbrella down and began to hear a lot more birds. Several times I thought I heard the loud alarm calls of a hermit thrush, but I couldn't believe it, so early in the season. But then I heard the flute calls, so it was indeed a hermit thrush. I saw a lone turkey out on the farm field, and later heard a gobbler in the next field. As I passed by one of the town trails, I heard a loud caterwauling and was trying to figure out what kind of bird it could be. Then I remembered--a furry red squirrel. I heard another loud chatter down by the brook, but this one was even and flew away fast, a belted kingfisher. I didn't have as much luck with my plants. I drew 3-part leaves as my random category for the day. I came up with a box elder tree sans leaves, a Clematis virginiana, sans leaves, and a Trifolium of some sort with a few leaves just poking up out of the mud.

4-25-18. Duke's Island Park, Raritan, NJ. 0.75 miles today 259.5 miles total.
Categories: blooming, leafing out, lichens
I had noticed in previous years two different people have spotted blue cohosh at this park. I had a nearby appointment so thought I'd take a look. No luck. It was drizzling, so all my plants are wet, but I found Norway maple, box elder, spring beauty, ground ivy, ivy-leaved speedwell, lesser celandine, common blue violets, garlic mustard, spicebush, downy yellow violet (unusual for me), and a cherry blooming. There were lots of birds flying back and forth in the canopy, but I'm not good with calls, and with the umbrella and interfering branches I got no clear photos of any of them. The only one I was certain of was a pair of bluejays.

The peepers are out here, too. I keep noticing them in odd places, like the middle school parking lot. We used to have them in the woods behind our house, but no longer.

The dandelions are blooming all over the lawns on the plain on the other side of the (600 foot) "mountain" where I live, but only one or two are open here in the valley on my side. It's neat to see them advancing.

I noticed that the zoo I visited had the most weeds in the tiger and bear enclosures, many fewer among the "nice" animals. But is that because tigers are not herbivores or because the staff were not going to hang out in there, weeding? Probably both.

I took a picture of a green heron today. My 14-year-old daughter was sitting next to me as I processed the photos. "Hey, check out the mohawk on this bird" I told her (it had its crest all raised). She said it looked like a herring. I told her close, green heron. "Wait, isn't that the one that starts out orbicular and then gets all longular?" she asked, making a darting motion with her arm. Now I want to find the video where she heard that!

you could add some things from google street view. does't count for walking though

4-28-18 New York City (mostly Brooklyn) 2.75 miles today, 263 miles total
Categories: blooming, unintentional plants, street trees
I came into the city with my son, Carl, to do the City Nature Challenge. We basically rode the A train nearly to the end, getting off several times to look at stuff that seemed interesting on the map and in places no one had iNat-ed before.
First we waited for our train, and I found a starling and a house sparrow (and some uninteresting weeds). Then we took the train, a shuttle bus (track work), and the PATH to basically the World Trade Center and I walked through the churchyard at St. Paul's. Hellebores and Kwanzan cherries were blooming, as was what was probably Pennsylvania sedge. Cherry laurel and crab apple were budding. I shot a pigeon and a robin.

We took the subway to Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn where dandelions, tulips, violets, daffodils, Virginia bluebells, hyacinth, more hellebores, squill, grape hyacinth, Korean spice viburnum, fosythia, more violets, lesser celandine, chickweed, callery pears, Norway maple, and more Kwanzan cherries were blooming; cornealian cherry was finishing up, and leatherleaf mahonia and redbud were budding. I shot a group of pigeons, a robin (badly) and more house sparrows.

Next stop was near the Aquaduct Racetrack, and it was all about weeds. Ivy leaved speedwell, dandelions, shepherd's purse, whitlow grass, henbit, corn speedwell, violets, bittercress, deadnettle, groundsel, lesser celandine, and Norway maple were flowering; a buckey was in bud, and I shot a pair of house sparrows, a bumble bee, and a sweat bee.

Next was our official destination, Rockaway Beach, but we found the beach itself was closed for nesting terns. Only shepherd's purse and callery pear were blooming here, but I found several shells, and shot another house sparrow, a grackle, a crow, and a starling. City birds are so much easier than suburban ones. They let you walk right up to them.

We stopped at the exit for JFK airport to eat at a grill that turned out to be a bar (but there was blue scorpionweed, which was cool). So we headed over to Utica Ave. to have lunch at a diner only to find it was 3/4 of a mile away and closed. But there were goldenrain tree, Japanese zelkova, gingko, Japanese pagoda tree, and even a Kentucky coffee tree planted along the route, which was neat. Then it was two subways, a 50 minute wait, a bus and a train to our truck to home. It started pouring the very second we got in the truck. All in all, though, a very successful trip, and I'm currently number 2 for number of species found in the NY section of the challenge.

But it was way more walking and standing than I planned, and I think I have several days of boot in my near future.

Wow! Your trip to NYC sounds fantastic, Sara! What a terrific haul, despite the wounded foot! I'm so glad you were there to document all those weeds! City weeds can be simply amazing!

I guess it's a good thing Montpelier/Vermont aren't in on the city challenge. We'd have to content ourselves with birds and brown things. Because there's not much green going on here yet, hardly any little weed seedlings to document, much less plants with flowers.

4-27-18. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 1 mile today, 1171.3 miles total.
Categories: birds, (graminoids)
I attended the first of the spring migration birdwalks at the North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier this morning, with Chip Darmstadt and 19 other birders. We didn't sneak up on much, with a group that size. We saw lots of song sparrows and ruby-throated kinglets this morning. As well as blue jays, chickadees, American goldfinches, and northern flickers. Some wood ducks flew overhead as well. I searched and searched for recognizable graminoids, but had no luck at all. When I didn't find any at the Nature Center, I took another walk on one of my favorite downtown Montpelier routes along Stone Cutter's Way, but still didn't any. Here at the end of winter, last year's brown grasses have been flattened by the snow and this year's crop are barely starting to sprout. I had forgotten how barren this part of the season can be. I guess if I had walked in the woods, I could have found some plantain-leaved sedges. But I simply had no luck with any sedges or grasses in town today.

4-29-18. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, VT. 1 mile today, 1175 miles total.
Categories: birds, lichens
I attended a beginning birders' workshop this morning at the Nature Center with 9 other birders. I still consider myself a beginning birder, based on how much trouble I have IDing birds, and how little birding knowledge I have compared to the experts I've met here, or on the walks at the Nature Center. I was certainly one of the least experienced birders on the trip to the Bog yesterday. The other folks on today's walk were fresh beginners, though. I guess I have managed to pick up quite a lot of birding knowledge and know-how through attending the weekly migration walks at the Nature Center for the past 4 years, and by taking photos and posting them here. Osmosis through hanging out with real birders. Meanwhile, lichens was a good random category for the day, although I did see a single blood root on the verge of opening. If it hadn't been 40F and raining hard, the little blood root blossom might actually have opened. I found some Flavoparmelia caperata, a little yellow lichen on bark, a fluffy light green lichen that was thicker than Usnea (I need to review my lichens!), and the thin blue-grey lichen that was covering white ash bark. For birds today, we concentrated on common birds and their songs, so we watched a song sparrow, some American goldfinches, some red-winged blackbirds, and flocks of ruby-crowned kinglets. We had some wood duck fly-bys, and a couple of great blue herons. We also got a glimpse of a yellow-rumped warbler, although I didn't manage to get a photo. Common or not, I think taking the time to watch familiar birds is simply a great way to spend time in the woods.

4-30-18. Pekin Brook Rd, Calais, VT. 3.7 miles today, 1178.7 miles total.
Categories: birds, bark
I am still in the habit of getting up early for a morning walk, so I managed to get out this morning before the fresh snow had a chance to melt much. So I got some scenic winter photos this season after all! I was delighted when my random category of the day came up "bark". Perfect for a snowy day! I found some yellow birch, hemlock, and box elder bark. The birds were rather quiet this morning compared to last week's walks through the neighborhood. I saw a couple of hawks, one of which I think may have been a sharp-shinned since it was moving fast, not gliding. The other one (an hour later, different location), was gliding so my guess is that it was a broad-winged hawk. There were lots and lots of robins out, and goldfinches as well. I saw a couple of ruby-crowned kinglets. They were probably suffering in the snow, but they had no time to complain, just scurry about and find caterpillars to eat. I also saw some yellow-rumped warblers in the same wetlands as the kinglets. They are definitely back in force.

4-30-18. Conference House Park, Staten Island. 1.0 mile today, 264 miles total
Categories: blooming, shells, identifiable
I had three hours to kill this afternoon, and realized the City Nature Challenge was still going on, and Staten Island (in the city) is only a 30 minute drive from my house. So I went to the park at the southwestern tip of the island.

It's a bioblitz, so I photographed everything. Fairly unusual (for me) things that I saw included: blooming amelanchier, blooming sassafras, crape myrtle, motherwort, greater celandine, blooming blue cohosh, blooming cream violet, tansy, sea rocket, sandburs, a bunch of shells including a marsh snail (new to me), ribbed mussel, and tubeworms, bryozoans, polychates, plus lots of dead bluefish, a dead gull, and live brants.

At one point I put my keys down next to a tiny shell to give a sense of scale to the picture, and I forgot to pick them back up! I didn't realize they were missing for more than 10 minutes and had to retrace my steps across the beach, dreading the idea of having to call my husband for a new set of keys (not the least because it costs $15 to cross the bridge from NJ to Staten Island!) but luckily, there they were, right where i left them. whew.

On the way home, there was a bit of a traffic jam for a turkey who was crossing the road. I got a picture, and we were still in Staten Island, so I posted it to the nature challenge only to find there were two other New York City turkeys posted already, who knew there were so many in the city limits?

Sorry to hear about the snow, though I saw your lovely winter picture. Hoping you get some of the hot that's coming our way in a day or two, and get a kickstart on your spring!