Evening Primrose

You have probably heard of evening primrose oil, and all of its wonderful benefits - from aiding skin conditions to lowering blood pressure to helping reduce cramping and breast tenderness in women.  Here's the source of that oil:

Visually, this wildflower really comes into its own in the fall, when its pretty yellow blossoms stand out against the dead and dying grasses around it.

It's a biennial plant, like mullein.  In its first year, it forms leaves close to the ground, in a rosette.  During the second year, the stems grow quite tall ( 6 feet or more) and the blossoms appear, as in this stand that Hyperion is examining, below:

Evening primrose has distinctive, barrel-shaped seed pods, which spiral their way up the stalk like little stair steps.

Another identifying feature is the color of the buds.   They are first green, and then take on a rusty color before blooming.

Parts of the plant are edible, but do your homework first!  Some people are allergic to compounds in the plant.  

The blossoms open in the evening, hence its common name.  The blossoms apparently give off a lemon scent but I did not notice that at the time I took these pictures.  The blossoms open in the evening, hence this plant's common name.

To see very cool videos of blossoms opening in real time, check out this website for Yosemite National Park: 

 http://www.yosemitehikes.com/wildflowers/evening-primrose/evening-primrose.htm

The scientific name Oenothera refers to wine generally.  I read that this name means everything from "wine-scented" to "wine-imbibing".  The jury is also still out on whether this is truly a native species.  Some claim it originated in Europe, but this seems unlikely.

Mother Wood Ducks

Please note:  THE PHOTO IN THIS POST IS NOT MINE.

It was taken from the Wood Duck Society page, at http://www.woodducksociety.com/qanda.htm .  Please visit that website if you would like to learn more about wood ducks.
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Wood ducks make their nests in holes in trees and in wood duck boxes built especially for them.  They like to nest near the edges of ponds.  Mother wood ducks lay about 15 eggs in one brood.  Their babies are able to swim within 24 hours of hatching.

Photo taken from the Wood Duck Society page, at http://www.woodducksociety.com/qanda.htm .

When the time is right, and after checking for nearby predators, the mother wood duck calls to her babies from the ground or the water underneath their nest.  She uses a particular call, and they leap from their nest like fuzzy little paratroopers.  Depending on the height of the nest, they may jump from 50 feet or more.  They land near their mother, and never return to the nest again.

Ducklings face many predators. Even before hatching they are subject to raccoon and snake attacks.  In the water they are gobbled up by large fish and snapping turtles.  On land, they are prey to mink, fox, and owl.  A mother wood duck keeps a weather eye out for dangers and will quickly lead the ducklings away into tall grasses to hide. Sometimes she will even feign injury to lead predators away from her young.

In 60 or 70 days, the ducklings that are left alive are able to fly.  That's not a very long time to teach these young ones all they need to know to face the world successfully.

If they survive this precarious beginning, they still face the threat of duck hunters who employ powerful tactics to call them in and woo them with promises of safety among a floating flock of decoys.  Wood ducks are one of the most popular game birds in North America.  So - yeah, a rough beginning and no easy life.  They have to be on their guard all the time.  

As I researched wood ducks, I was struck by the correlation between mother wood ducks and those of us trying to help young people grow up in this world.  While baby wood ducks can swim soon after hatching, they are still novices in the wider world and subject to many dangers of which they have no knowledge or experience.  In the same way, young people leave home at tender ages.  They are equipped with many abilities but are not always aware of potential dangers around them.  They don't yet have the experiences that we older folks have.

Like the mother wood duck, we parents, aunties and uncles, grandparents and youth leaders can call to them and invite them to follow us on safe paths.  We can raise the alarm when dangers threaten.  And we can do our best to help them sail in safe waters. 

We have a distinct advantage over our feathered friends, too.  We have a Heavenly Father who knows and loves us, and who knows the beginning from the end.  He knows the plans He has made for us.  Through prayer, and personal revelation, we can receive inspiration on how to help these young ones leave the nest and thrive.  Life will not always be easy, but when we rely on the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will have a sure foundation to lead them along. 

Crayfish Chimney

I was out hiking with Hyperion between a cattail marsh and a little stream when he spied something before I did, as usual.

"Hey, it's a crawfish chimney," he said.  I was excited to see it.  It was only the second time I've ever seen them.

The crayfish, or crawfish as they are sometimes called, excavate these chimneys and dwell below. 

Here is a link to another post I wrote about such crustacean constructions, describing how the builder's work:

 http://foundonthetrail.blogspot.com/2012/06/crawfish-chimney.html

Green Leaf Bug

The wings on this bug look just like a green leaf, with veins and all:

It's a katydid!

It's hard for me to believe that I could reach this ripe old age without ever having seen a katydid before. but it's true.  I just found this one last month.  It was on a window screen or I never would have noticed it - so perfect is its camouflage.

There are several kinds of katydids in North America, and even though I've never seen one until now, I've heard them all the days of my life. It is the sound of summer.

Take a listen on NaturesFairy's YouTube video, found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob2rEjRz-RM

Anyone interested in learning more katydis them should check out this wonderful website called "Valerie's Austin Bug Collection".  It has many fabulous photos of the different kinds, showing their various features such as wing shape:  

http://www.austinbug.com/tettigoniidae.html

The ovipositor on this one lets us know it is a female.

Blog Contest Prizes

For my 250th post, I held a contest here on the blog.  That was back in February.  There were 10 multiple choice questions, and one bonus question.

You can see the quiz here: http://foundonthetrail.blogspot.com/2014/02/250th-post-celebration-contest.html .)

We had wonderful participation, more than doubling the number of participants from my first contest at the 100 blog post point.  We went from 3 participants to 8!  Huzzah!

It was a wonderful chance for me to see what the contest winners would pick for their prizes, and to see how the nature photos posted here look in different formats.  All the top scores were put in a hat and the winners were picked randomly for fabulous prizes!

2nd place won the photo magnets prize.  This went to my friend Ashley, who is herself a nature guru.  Here are the magnet photos she picked out, now gracing her filing cabinet at work.  Pelicans, the Jack O'Lantern mushrooms, a bumble bee, and a dragonfly:

Photo courtesy of Ashley - thanks, Ashley!

It should be no surprise that among her top choices for photo magnets, one was the lovely and mysterious Jack O'Lantern mushroom, as Ashley is the maven of mushroom identification.  Here's the original blogpost on those fungi:  http://foundonthetrail.blogspot.com/2012/08/night-adventures.html .

Ashley has her own nature blog, which you might want to check out.  It's on the sidebar in my blogroll.  It's called "Amore Feral Natura".  Here's a link:  http://amorferalnatura.blogspot.com/2014/03/mystery-mushroom.html .  Happy reading, and happy viewing!

1st place - a canvas print - went to my friend Coleen, who has been a walking and photography companion of mine.  For her canvas she selected a winter scene with a couple of dozen eagles perched in a tree:

I wish you all could have won prizes!  It was so much fun holding this contest that I want to hold another one soon, so I'd better get to writing in order to hit the next big number!

Daddy Longlegs

Daddy longlegs are spiders.  That's the name that my family, friends and neighbors always used for them, anyway, but some people also call them granddaddy longlegs or harvestmen.  What do you call them?

They don't spin webs, and contrary to popular urban legends, they cannot poison you - no, not even if they were able to bite you between your toes where your skin is reportedly the softest.  (Check out snopes.com for more information on this, if you don't believe me:  http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/longlegs.asp .)

They are still kind of creep, however, when they are in your house or in your tent at summer camp.  I have known them to strike fear into the hearts of otherwise perfectly normal and mentally sound people.

Interesting fact - if their legs get cut or torn off, they still jiggle and move afterwards.  Don't let that freak you out next time you come upon just such carnage!

Hazy Day

I scurried out for a walk yesterday morning, in spite of the lowering clouds.  I guess I thought that if I could just get out into the woods in time, the rain would hold off just for me, and I could get in a full walk.  No such luck.

When I arrived at Pigeon Creek Park, everything seemed gray and still.  Then I got out of the car.  Something about the overcast sky gave a luminosity to the changing leaves, and everything green seemed to glow with a faint inner light.

The air was filled with chirps, trills and chips.  There were sparrows, cardinals, goldfinches, red-winged blackbirds, and even crows and jays.

I spent some time trying to I.D. a new bird I heard among the dead and dying cup plants, that towered over me like a forest in their own right, but again - no luck there.  I taped the sound in hopes of identifying it later, when I got back home.

A squirrel kept running up and down the path, like a mad man.  I wondered what he was up to, but figured it had to do with seeds and nuts.

The goldfinches were as secretive as ever, dashing about in their perfect camouflaged suits.

The goldfinch is right in the center of this photo, in the angle of the center forked branches.

A black-capped chickadee came a little closer.

The woods were glooomy.

A couple of frogs who were pond-side gave me a start as they leaped away from my advancing footsteps.  I guess they were as scared of me as I was of their sudden movement in the bushy grass..

Coming out of the woods and onto the river, I took a look at the the arched shore, hoping for new waterfowl, or any waterfowl to photograph.  Not much was stirring but a couple of pairs of mallards - far down the beach.

I knew the killdeer were out there too, but I just couldn't see them.

I went out to the first point, walking into grey nothingness.  The water was the same color as the sky.  Rain began to fall.  A nuthatch tapped quietly on the tree nearest me, seeking insects under the bark.

As I turned back to the sandy shoreline, a sandpiper just couldn't stand it anymore, and burst from its cover in the marshy grasses - a blur of brown and white.

Another bird flew across my field of view, and landed on a bare branch - a northern flicker.  I love the splash of red they wear on the napes of their necks!

It was then that I heard a faint call.  It sounded like it came from out over the water.  I wasn't sure what kind of a call it was - and no birds were in sight.

The sky was bare, so I scanned the shoreline, looking for possible herons and egrets.  It didn't sound like a heron's grumpy croaking, but I don't know what kind of sound they make when they are happy or interacting with loved ones.  So I looked - but saw nothing.

After some time, I heard the call again, muffled and faint.  Then saw a big bird in the sky - making a beeline for the tree tops.  It was so far away, I couldn't tell what it was, even when I zoomed in on it with my camera.

A couple of minutes later, I heard more calling and saw two birds racing away from the tree tops.

At first I thought it might be a smaller bird mobbing a crow away from its nest, or a crow chasing a hawk.  I even wondered if it were a hawk and a vulture having a squabble, but the calls didn't match any of these birds.  That's when I guessed these might be eagles.  Eagles have that distinctive ratcheting kind of call.

It wasn't until I got home and zoomed way in on the photos that I was able to see the white heads and realized that yes, this was a pair of bald eagles.

Are  they nesting on that point off Pigeon Creek Park?  Have they just arrived from the north, or do they live here year round?

 Or, are these the ALCOA eagles, Liberty and Justice?  The plant is about a mile downriver, near the tower and smokestack pictured here:

I'll probably never know.  But here's a link to the ALCOA eagle website for your reading pleasure.  You can also get to their eagle cam from here:
 http://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_davenport/en/info_page/eaglecam.asp

House Sparrow

House Sparrows.  Yep, they're an invasive species, but still interesting.

Fun Fact #1:  According to allaboutbirds.com, house sparrows were first introduced to the United States in 1851, in Brooklyn, New York.  Click here to read about that:   http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/house_sparrow/lifehistory .

Fun Fact #2:  The larger the black patch on a male house sparrow's throat, the more dominant he is in the pecking order of the flock.

Fun Fact #3:  The scientific name for the house sparrow is Passer domesticus.  Passer refers to a small, active bird, and domesticus means "belonging to the house".

House sparrows are extremely common in the lower 48, and are different than our native North American sparrows, such as the song sparrow and the white-throated sparrow.  If you look through a field guide at the sparrows depicted there, you will see the difference in body shapes between these two branches of the sparrow family.

Mystery Solved

I have been wondering what this plant was for a while now:

Do you know it?

Every time I have seen it, I have photographed it, and then searched my field guides for it.  I tried googling it by putting in key words representing its most outstanding features.  No luck - until last week.

It's elderberry!

Most photos I've found on this plant online focuses on the white blossoms, rather than the beautiful, net-like appearance of its stalks and stems.

Elderberry a native plant, and is common in Iowa and Illinois.  It is an important food source for songbirds.  Deer, squirrels and mice also eat it.  Its scientific name is Sambucus.  While the plant can be poisonous, people do use the berries for food and to make drinks.  The wood has been used around the world to make musical instruments.

Elderberry has an amazing history, and I can't resist sharing with you a link to a super-informative online paper about elderberry for your further reading pleasure.  It was written by Charles E. Voigt, entitled "Elderberry, Herb of the Year 2013".  Here's the link:  http://jhawkins54.typepad.com/files/elderberry-hoy-document.pdf .

In his section on the history and lore of the plant, Voight states the following on the fascinating etymology of the name:

"Elderberry has been involved with human history for hundreds of years. Sambucus comes
from the Greek word “sambuke,” a musical instrument made of elder wood, whose music was
believed to heal the spirit. (In Europe, Elderberry wood was used for making musical
instruments.) The common name “elder” comes from the Anglo-Saxon “ellen”, meaning firekindler, because of the dry, pithy stems."

American Hogpeanut

This is just the plant you wanted to learn about today.  You will soon be seeing it again, growing all over the forest floor and twining itself around anything that can give it support.

Up until now, I have been mistaking this plant for a common violet!  It is actually an amazing entity.  It produces two different flowers, and two different seeds.

If you take a moment to look at the leaflets in this photo, you will probably be able to identify this plant when you see it again in the wild.

Each compound leaf has three leaflets with sharp tips and asymmetrical bases.  You can see a kind of bulge on the base of the leaflets in the photo above.  And the middle leaflet of the three is larger, with a longer stem.

This plant's name is a perfect example of how so much scientific information can be packed into a couple of words.  Quoting from gobotany.newenglandwild.org we learn the following:

"The genus name is from the Greek amphi (of both kinds) and carpos (fruit) and refers to the two kinds of fruit.  The seeds of the upper fruit are inedible, but those from the underground fruit are edible when boiled.  Birds feed on the seeds of both kinds of fruit.  Hogs eat the seeds of the fruit below ground, hence the plants (sic) common name."

Many thanks to my friend Bryan R. (from Wood Badge), who helped me successfully identify this plant when it was driving me crazy by being so familiar and yet so anonymous!

Requirements for a Wetland

According to the EPA, "...wetlands are lands where saturation with water is the dominating factor determining the nature of soil development and the types of plant and animal communities living in the soil and on its surface".*

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, a wetland has to have three things:  hydrophytic vegetation, hydric soils, and a wetland hydrology.**

According to Hyperion, there is one other crucial element:

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Must be a wetland.



* http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guidance/wetlands/definitions.cfm

** http://www.wetlands.com/regs/tlpge03d.htm

Common Reed

The scientific name for the common reed is not so common.  In fact, it's a lot of fun to say.  It is "Phragmites australis".  Say it.  Say, "Phragmites!"

Summer

The common reed, which is very tall and grows in wetlands, is one of the most common plants worldwide.  The only continent where you can't find it is - you guessed it - Antarctica.

Summer

It has been used to make thatched roofs for cottages, baskets, mats, musical instruments, brooms, arrows, and spears.  It has also been a food source for humans and animals.

Winter

There are two basic kinds of Phragmites australis here in North America.  Invasive, and non-invasive.  The invasive kind seems to have started along the eastern seaboard and worked it's way west, as with so many other invasive species.

Winter stand

I have no solid idea which kind I have captured in these photographs.  They are difficult for a layman like me to tell apart.  The native species usually grows in less dense stands, has lighter leaf coloring, and more red coloring along the nodules and stems.

For an excellent field guide on this matter, go to the following web address:

http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/pdf/phau1-powerpoint.pdf

The two women who wrote this treatise, Jil Swearingen and Kristin Saltonstall, have done a superior job in their writing and their use of photographs and drawings.

Alligator Corn

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Know what this is?  Sure you do!  You've probably seen these distinctive American lotus seed pods along the river.  When I researched them, I found all sorts of colloquial names for the seeds:

Alligator Corn
Alligator Buttons
Duck Acorns
Rattlenuts
Yockernuts
Pondnuts

And they are edible by more than just ducks and alligators!

The seeds can be eaten raw, boiled or roasted, and can be added to soups.  They can even be popped - due to their oil content.  Older seeds can be ground into flour, from which a paste can be made to bake into pastries.

It's not just the seeds that make their way into the kitchen.  The stamens can be made into tea, new leaves can be eaten as a green, and the roots can be stir-friend, baked, or stuffed.

Who knew?

Actually, American Indians knew.  The lotus was a food staple for many of them.

For an interesting article on lotus seeds, check out eattheweeds.com where Green Deane is touted as the "Most Watched Forager in the World".  He has an article on these particular wild edibles at http://www.eattheweeds.com/american-lotus-worth-getting-wet-for/ .

I Gotta Green!

It's blurry, but I was thrilled with this photo!  Know why?  Because contained within its distant, fuzzy pixels is my first green heron!

It flew across the lake and landed on a log.  That movement is the only reason I saw it.  I had my camera up in a flash but was awfully far away from it.

As usual, it was only when I got home that I realized there was more in the frame than I thought.  Do you see it?  There's a second heron in the background.

Here's a close up.

Green herons are most active at dusk and dawn, but if hungry they hunt during the day.  They stand perfectly still, waiting for a hapless fish to come by.  Sometimes they drop insects or feathers to attract the attention of fish and draw them in.  How's that for cool?  This makes them tool users, which is very rare in the animal world.

My photo caught the herons with their reddish-brown necks extended, but they often sit with their necks drawn in, creating a very different profile.

For some awesome photos of green herons, check out 10,000birds.com and look at their post "Green Herons and their Groovy Necks" at  http://10000birds.com/green-herons-and-their-groovy-necks.htm  .  They have some fantastic before and after pictures of herons with their necks extended and retracted.