Dragons & Damsels

I found this stunning little creature last Friday.  At first I thought it was a black butterfly, and fumbled with my camera to get a picture of it before it fluttered away. Much to my surprise, when I got home and put the pictures on the computer, I saw that this was a dragonfly.  Or so I thought.

Calopteryx maculata, resting on a poison ivy leaf.

When I researched a black-winged dragonfly, I was let to understand that this ebony beauty was really a damselfly.  Isn't that a great name?!  I picture a beautiful lady with sparkling, flowing scarves and a wind-billowed, shimmering dress standing on a castle rampart with her hair streaming behind her.

So what is the difference between a dragonfly and a damselfly?

Well, the biggest difference that I think would help a person identify them in the field is the way they hold their wings at rest.  Both dragonflies and damselflies have two pairs of wings.  However, a dragonfly will rest with his two pairs outstretched, and a damselfly holds hers upright, like a butterfly at rest.  (Hency my mistaken initial identification.)

Here is a dragonfly (below).  You can see how his wings are outstretched as he rests on the stalk of grass.

Libellula luctuosa, resting on tall grasses near a lake shore.

The damselfly (in the first photo) is an ebony jewelwing, and what an apt name.  It is lovely and shiny.  This one picture is a male.  The bodies of the males are more of a metallic green, and the females are more brown.  Their scientific name is Calopteryx maculata.  Calopteryx is from the Greek, meaning beautiful wing.  Maculata refers to the white spot the females have on the tips of their wings.

The dragonfly (second photo) is a male widow skimmer.  The males have white coloring at mid-wing, whereas the females do not.  His scientific name is Libellula luctuosa.  I had a hard time finding the etymology of Libellula, but it may be related to the Latin word for booklet.  Luctuosa has reference to mourning, and may be related to the black coloring on both the male and female.

Asiatic Dayflower

I was walking along a new trail in an urban park.  The cobweb factor was probably 7 out of 10.  The weeds on both sides were up past my elbows.   Then a splash of blue caught my eye.  Turning to look, I saw what I at first thought was a violet.

Hunkering down to get a closer look, I realized this was not just a common violet.  It was something special, and the only one of its kind as far as I could see.  It had two large blue petals, and what appeared to be tiny yellow flowers coming out of the center.  "That's different," I thought, and snapped away.  I felt like a real botanist at that moment!

Note the third flower petal, which is white, and is located behind the stamens in this photo.

When I came home, it was easy to google this unique flower and find out what it was.  It's an Asiatic dayflower.  These flowers last for only one day.  They bloom in the morning and do their best to attract pollinators with their showy yellow stamens, which I had at first taken for tiny flowers.

The Asiatic dayflower is an invasive species, but you can see why it was brought here.  It is very delicate and beautiful, and I felt like I had found a rare jewel.

Quacking Around

Duck,

Duck,

Duck,

Duck,

Goose!

Night Adventures

The first official Found on the Trail group field trip was conducted yesterday evening, with great fanfare and much excitement.

Family members asked, "You're going where?" and looked at us quizzically as we loaded up with highly sensitive instruments, meant to record scientific data.  And then, we were out the door!

As you will recall, yesterday's post was on those luscious, bright orange mushrooms called Jack O'Lanterns.  Multiple sources online had indicated that these fungi would glow in the dark.  Eager to see this phenomena, intrepid reader Sarah and myself conducted an investigative foray onto the bike path late last night.

And this, dear readers, is is what we saw:

Yep.  That's it.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.

Highly disappointed, we knelt close to the specimens, and peered under their thick, leathery caps.  No glow.

Imagine our disappointment!  Granted, there was a bright moon, and a street light cast its beam in the vicinity, but still.  We had expected something!  After all, their legendary glow is said to have guided lost pioneers home in the dark, in days past.

This glow is supposed to occur along the same principles as the glimmer produced in lightning bugs.  Even knowing this, we could not refrain from placing an artificial light sources under their gorgeous caps in an irrational hope of supplying a needed trigger.  This provided not even a residual flicker, once removed.

However, this photo, taken during the process, is a good example of the sort of glow we had hoped to witness naturally:

Sadly disappointed, and slightly startled by a big, brown creature that ran close by us, we decided to leave.  But first, we took photos to document for the world our devotion to scientific research.  There are almost no depths to which we would not plummet in order to ascertain facts for this blog:

Having concluded our field work, we proceeded to the research vehicle to a soundtrack of our own laughter and neighborhood dogs barking at us suspiciously.  We left the vicinity, confident that we had done all we could do, for that night.  More research will have to be conducted in order to determine the truth behind the alleged glowing properties of this fungi.

Jack O'Lantern Mushrooms

Are you ready for Halloween?  These mushrooms are.  Take a look at these massive, bright orange beauties!  They are called jack o'lantern mushrooms, or Omphalotus olearius.  (Say that six times fast in a row!)

A friend told me about these beautiful fungi.  She'd seen them on her morning bike ride, and left a note on my car windshield as to their location, because she knew I was out sleuthing in the nearby creek bed.  Thank you, Sarah.  What a find!

These mushrooms, while glorious to behold, are poisonous.  They won't necessarily kill you, but can cause you to have severe cramps and vomiting, among other reactions.  Yet oddly enough, I read on Wikipedia that some people suffer from poisoning more than once because they find them irresistible.  Sounds like a malignant plot twist in a fairy tale, doesn't it?

So, you can look, but don't taste!

And that's not all.  Their gills are supposed to glow in the dark.  Hmmm.  I'll have to check that out.  Anyone up for a field trip?

Thorn In My Side

See those thorns?  That's called a "diagnostic feature".  Typically the thorns run from 4 - 8 inches long.  Not a tree you'd want to hug if you got lost.  And not a tree you'd really want in your yard or pasture, either.

This is a honey locust.  Those thorns are sharp enough to flatten your car tire, and can do real damage to a person, even when wearing thick boots.  You can see why farmers consider this tree a menace.

Most honey locust trees have thorns, but a small percentage do not.  There is also a thornless cultivated version, sold from nurseries.

The species name is Gleditsia Triacanthos, from the name of German botanist, Gottlieb Gleditsch, and Greek words meaning "three-spined".  (The thorns often grow with three prongs.)

The thorns are green when new, red when mature, and grey as they become aged and brittle.  All three can puncture your skin and leave you with a nasty wound.

The honey locust is actually part of the legume family.  Consider it a gigantic pea plant.  You are probably familiar with the long, leathery pods.

Their contents are eaten by foxes, squirrels, deer, and birds.  They are also edible to humans.  They have a sweet taste - hence the common name of "honey".  If you get hungry, just be sure you don't mix the honey locust up with the black locust, whose fruit should NOT be eaten.

Mayapple

The Mayapple is a great little woodland plant.  Almost everyone is familiar with it, even if somewhat unconsciously.  When I've taken scouts on nature hikes and name it for them, they say, "Oh yeah!  I've seen that before!"

The plant looks like a big umbrella to me, which is one of its nicknames.  They grow in colonies, just like trillium.

The really exciting part, to me, is the when the blossoms can be found underneath their green canopies - hidden away.  From these blossoms, later in the summer, you will get actual little fruits.  They can be toxic, but I've read that they are edible in moderation.  In fact, one of the plant's nicknames is the wild lemon, due to its flavor.

Robins

Fat

Skinny

Early

Mallards

Had the pleasure of coming across these mallards recently.  Here's a drake.  I like his shiny, iridescent head and yellow bill.  He was swimming in a creek.  I love how his black tail feathers curl so perfectly in the back.

Here's a hen.  She was enjoying a temporary pond, filled with a superfluity of rain water.  I like the patch of blue on her wing, and the orange of her bill and feet.

After looking at my photos of this hen, I wondered if her bill was just muddy, or if it was naturally colored this way.  After some research, I learned that all such hens have a two-toned bill.

Black Barrel Mystery

Found this in the wood.

The barrel buckled as the tree grew and pulled the metal band tighter.

It had this label:

There were holes drilled in the bottom.

Found a second one, further on in the woods.  It still had a lid.  Netting was sticking out.

This one had a different label, with a "1" instead of a "2".

What they were for?  Animal homes?  What kind were they meant for?  How long had they been there?  Were there any more?  I looked but didn't find any others.

I searched on the internet for clues, but came up with nothing.  They remain a mystery.

Garlic Mustard

"It's evil!  It grows like crazy and kills other plants," said Jason, when I asked him what he knew about garlic mustard.  Yes folks, that about sums it up.

Garlic mustard is an invasive species that has taken a strangle-hold in several states, starting on the eastern seaboard and moving west.  It has even jumped the Mississippi River.  In some of these places, it has become the main plant in the forest under-brush.

Does it really kill other plants?  Well, it doesn't bite or stab them, but it does put out a chemical in the soil that suppresses a naturally-occurring fungi which many native plants and trees need to grow.  Also, according to the National Park Service, it "...outcompetes native plants by aggressively monopolizing light, moisture, nutrients, soil and space."  So, yeah, it takes everything they need to live, causing them to not live.

And how did Jason learn so much about it?  Mainly from a scout leader out at camp, who has a personal vendetta against the plant.  He can often be spotted pulling the plant up around camp, root and all.  Many are the scouts who have been unsurreptiously enlisted in his cause.  He's one of many people in the area that attend Garlic Pulls in the spring, to try to help eradicate this plant, or at least slow it's spread.

Gray Squirrel

Gray squirrel:  from the genus Sciurus, which is made up of two Greek words - "skia" meaning shadow, and "oura" meaning tail.  Shadow Tale.  Isn't that a cool name?  Sounds like a Redwall character.  (Thank you, Wikipedia!)

This one was kind enough to sit for a portrait for me.

Next he was bounding off.

Look at his cute little feet!  (Click on the photo to enlarge.)

Confederate Violets

Saw tons of violets on a recent walk.  There were lots of purple ones, and plenty of white ones.  Then I saw this one.

It caught my eye because it was different.  When I got home, I looked it up.  It's a Confederate Violet - so called because their coloring reminded people of the blue-grey Confederate uniforms in the Civil War.  I have read that they are more common in the south than in the north.  What a delightful little find!

Northern Cardinal

I was happy to get this shot of a Northern Cardinal in a park near my home.  He seemed as surprised as I was that he let me get this close to him!

Shifts in the cardinal's taxonomic nomenclature are interesting.  According to Wikepedia (I know - I know!), it was first assigned to the genus Loxia.  Then, in 1883 it was placed in the genus Cardinalis, and was called Cardinalis virginianus - meaning Virginia Cardinal.  In 1918, its designation changed to Richmondena cardinalis, to honor a famous ornithologist.  And then in 1983, it became Cardinalis cardinalis, when its common name was changed to Northern Cardinal to distinguish it from seven other species of cardinals.

Dutchman's Breeches

Being a novice at plant identification, I appreciate Dutchman's Breeches.  They are a darling little plant, and so easy to identify, that even a child can do it.

It is a treat to come upon a patch of these charming plants.  They sit there on the forest floor, intricately fashioned and so delicate.  One imagines tiny fairies have hung out their laundry to dry on a woodland clothesline.

In his book An Introduction to Wildflowers, John Kieran describes their whimsical look:  "It seems like something that might be produced in a toy shop or sold at a candy counter."  Exactly!  They look like tiny little confections ready to be plucked and eaten.  But don't - they may be toxic.