Quacking Around

Duck,

Duck,

Duck,

Duck,

Goose!

Alligator Corn

.

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/ .

Please Enter to Win!

Dear Readers,

So far we have had two submissions for the 100 Posts Celebration contents.  I would love to have many more.  Please take a look at the 100 Posts Celebration post and check out the ten question quiz there.  Send your answers to me at sloughsleuth@gmail.com .

Most of the questions can be answered by looking back in the last twenty-five posts.  Email me or post questions in the comment boxes if you get stuck.  I do give hints!  I would love to have more participants, so please give it a try.

The prize to the top winner will be five note cards printed with the photo or photos of theirchoice from my blog.  If there is a tie, a winner will be randomly selected from the top pool of contenstents.

You still have time to enter.  Submit your entries by midnight on Thursday, September 20, 2012.  Here's hoping that many of you will send in your answers!

Sincerely,
Demeter, the Slough Sleuth

Lotus Leaves

Look at this mosaic of lotus leaves.

They make a little wilderness of shelter, shade and shapes.

I love the enormous concave leaves.  They remind me of elephant ears, the way they flap in the wind.

Don't get lotus leaves mixed up with lily pads as I did at first.  Water lilies are in a different family altogether.  Lily pads have a cut in them, like a piece of pie that has been cut out, like this:

Lotus leaves have no such division, although when decaying, they may look as if they do.  Here are some lotus leaves beginning to decay, as the season fades.

When we were walking among these lotus plants on some docks off the Ben Butterworth Parkway, Hyperion noticed water droplets rolling around inside some of the leaves, forming and reforming.

They sparkled like gems and raced back and forth as the waves under the leaves rose and fell.

This one, in particular, looked like a perfect marble.  Note the spherical shape.

It reminded me of a ball of mercury, such as we used to play with in our high school chemistry class.  The natural world holds endless surprises.

American Lotus

The American lotus grows in swamps and ponds, and around here, in the backwaters of the Mississippi.  These were photographed out at Smith's Island, by Lock & Dam 14.

The American lotus is also called the water-chinquapin.  Chinquapin traces back to the Alqonquian language, and was used in reference to more than one plant.

The leaves are very large, and can flap and sway in the wind, or roll up upon themselves.  

The lotus grow from the edge of the water out to water of about eight feet of depth, or so.  

The flowers range in color from almost white to yellow.  

Their species name is Nelumbo luteo.  Nelumbo is said to mean "sacred bean", and luteo is from the Latin, and refers to the yellow color. 

Past Trails: Nature Study Group

When my boys were younger, we got involved in a wonderful nature study group as part of our homeschool.  We met every Friday, and explored some wild place in the area, often sketching what we found.  Sometimes formal lessons were taught by youth and adults in the group, and by expert in the community.  Other times the lessons came from impromptu teaching moments on the trail.

We hiked at Wildcat Den, studied Indian burial mounds at Albany Mounds, went letter boxing and geocaching, hiked in the snow at Scott County Park, and studied mussels at Pigeon Creek.  We climbed muddy hillsides at Illiniwek Forest Preserve, observed birds and learned about native plants and turtles at Nahant Marsh, and had a presentation on bats by a Davenport parks & rec. instructor.  We studied geographic features at Black Hawk State Park, caught toads and frogs at Eastern Avenue Park, and laughed our heads off over a ferret video in LeClaire.  We made mint tea at Devil's Glen Park, studied animal gaits and went snowshoeing at the Wapsipinicon Environmental Center, and visited the Vander Veer Botanical Gardens multiple times.  We studied rocks and fossils at the Fryxell Geology Museum, went start gazing at Augustana College observatory, studied snow at Crow Creek park, and attended a star program at the Bettendorf High School Planetarium.  These were just some of our outings.

Here's a picture of the group one spring day in 2008 at Credit Island.  I remember this day.  It was beautiful out, and we took a long walk at the tip of the island.  We saw American White Pelicans and soaked up the sunshine and camaraderie.

Nature Study Group, Credit Island, April 2008

These weekly outings rekindled my interest in the natural world, and helped me appreciate the beauty around me which God has created.  This group was a lifesaver for me, and a delight.  I loved getting out, and meeting the other ladies, and seeing all of our kids playing together.  Friendships were formed in this group that still remain today.

The Elusive One

For me, the female red-winged blackbird is difficult to photograph.  There could be dozens of them around, all chirping and flitting about, but they are usually too fast to be photographed, or they land just out of range, perching obscured from view.  Like this:

The elusive female red-winged blackbird, obscured from view.

Yes, over the course of months, I have taken hundreds of such abject photos, and worse.  I have tried and failed many times.  They are too shy, and too wary.  And somewhere along the way, it became personal for me - a vendetta.

Then one day, with my camera at the ready, it happened.  I saw this lovely lady red-wing in the brush, and I was able to get a good shot.  I knew it was a clear shot even before looking at the results in my viewfinder!

Overcome with victory, I shouted out, my voice thick with the drama of the moment, "Long have I hunted you, and long have you eluded me!"

She looked at me oddly, not getting the veiled reference to Aragorn's speech to Sauron when he masters control of the palantir.

"Behold the camera of Demeter, the Slough Sleuth!"

100 Blog Posts!!!

I've reached a milestone here at Found on the Trail.  I've written 100 posts!  Sing!  Shout!  Dance in the streets!

Mr. Robin adds his jubilant voice to the celebration!

In honor of this milestone, and out of gratitude, I am offering a free gift to one of you lucky, lucky readers!!!

Here's how it works.  I will present ten quiz questions below, based on information I've shared in Found on the Trail.  Each reader should submit his or her answers to me, by email.  I will give you one week to complete this task, as some readers do not stop by every day.  Once the deadline is past, I will examine all of your answers.  The person with the highest score will win a prize.  If there is a tie, then one winner will be selected at random from those among that group.

And what is the prize?  The winner will receive five free note cards, with the picture or pictures of their choice selected from the photos published here at Found on the Trail.  Awesome, I know!  :)

The quiz questions await you, below.  Most of the questions are based on the last twenty-five posts.  Remember that  many posts have category labels on them.  This may help you in going back to look up answers.

Please send your submissions to sloughsleuth@gmail.com .

Make comments or ask questions by posting comments to this post, but please send your actual answers to my email.  Thanks!

Thank you for your loyal readership, wonderful comments, and great feedback.  I hope you will continue to read Found on the Trail for a long time to come.  You have made writing this blog so much more fun and enjoyable for me.

Sincerely,
Demeter (aka The Slough Sleuth)
..........................................................


Found on the Trail 100 Posts Celebration Quiz

1.  Name any animal, that is a member of the order rodentia, that has been mentioned in this blog.

2.  Do butterflies help pollinate plants?

3.  Name one general source for scientific names which have been given to groups of animals or individual animals.  (In other words, where do the scientific names come from?)

4.  Give one name for a type of seed pod dispersed by the wind.

5.  List one principle of Leave No Trace and explain why it is important.

6.  Which animal recently mentioned in this blog is a symbol for Canada?

7.  Which bird, plant or animal in the blog supposedly has properties that make it glow at night?

8.  What bird mentioned in Found on the Trail is known to use "tools" to attract prey?

9.  Name a tree discussed in this blog that has bean-like pods.  

10.  Which critter mentioned here takes one of it's name from the word "trogdolyte", meaning cave dweller?

Red Gate Raccoon

We have a metal gate out at the scout camp.

Newly painted gate, spring 2012

When walking out there the other day, I saw it and remembered how it got a fresh coat of red paint last spring.  I went closer to admire the new paint job, and what did I see?

The now dusty gate with tracks, fall 2012

Tracks!

These tracks made me laugh out loud.  I instantly envisioned some medium-sized mammal walking the gate like a balance beam, nearly falling off one side and then the other.  I wished I had been there to witness the acrobatics in real time, but the story the tracks told was entertaining enough.

As I was admiring the tracks, some scouts walked up and joined me in viewing the evidence of such animal antics.  After a brief confab, we came to the conclusion that these were racoon tracks.

Raccoons do live out at camp in - shall we say - large numbers.  They can often be seen around the camp, and can be heard screeching quarrelsomely at night.  They have been known to enter people's tents, into garbage cans, and even into dumpsters.  Those places are all logical, because the raccoons are pursuing food smells.  What surprised me here was why they would be climbing all over this gate?  What was the benefit to themselves, or were they just having fun?

Math with Mammals

While tearing down an old fence along the treeline at a city park, and clearing the brush back for a new fence at an Eagle Project, we came upon this little creature:

It is a mammal, and one that people often misidentify as a mouse, or even a shrew.  Can you guess what it is?

In this photo, you can see the basic body shape.  It is fatter than a mouse, and has a shorter tail.  Also, its ears are smaller than a mouse's would be.

Yep!  It's a vole!

Voles are in the rodent family, which comes from the word rodere meaning "to gnaw" or "to eat away".  This is fitting because they have two very long teeth in front with which they do a lot of gnawing.

Violet the Vole

With voles we see an example of  exponential growth.

One female vole - let's call her Violet - can have up to 10 litters in a year.  Each litter can have between 5 to 10 pups.  So for Violet alone, that's a potential of having 50 to 100 pups in a year.  But that's not all.  Each pup matures to an adult vole in four weeks.  So a month after Violet's first litter, she is already expecting a new litter of 5 to 10 babies, and so are her offspring from her first litter.  As the year progresses, her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great greats are producing litters of their own.  Voila!  You have a veritable vole explosion.

Here's a partial breakdown:

Litter #1:
Violet has 5 to 10 pups.  We'll call these pups Generation #1.
Total:  5 to 10 pups

Litter #2:
Violet has 5 to 10 pups.
Generation #1 has 50 to 100 pups, called Generation #2A
Total Pups:  55 to 110

Litter #3:
Violet 5 to 10 pups.
Generation #1 has 50 to 100 pups, called Generation #2B
Generation #2A has 500 to 1,000 pups, called Generation #3A
Total Pups:  555 to 1,110

Litter #4:
Violet 5 to 10 pups.
Generation #1 has 50 to 100 pups, called Generation #2C
Generation #2 has 500 to 1,000 pups, called Generation #3B
Generation #2B has 500 to 1,000 pups, called Generation #4B
Generation #3A has 2,500 to 10,000 pups, called Generation #5A
Total Pups:  3,555 to 12,110

You can see where this is going.  With 6 more litters to go in the cycle of this theoretical year, it is easy to see that the number of pups produced will be ASTRONOMICAL!  And this is starting with only one vole.  But Violet was not born in a vacuum and has parents, siblings, cousins and grandparents of her own, all producing young at the same pace.

So why don't we see voles everywhere we go?  Well, they have natural predators who eat them up, and help keep their population in check.  Thousands of snakes, raccoons, hawks and owls dine on these tasty little beasties every day, and save us from being overrun.

Bobbing Buddies

Came upon a "field" of American lotus on the river's edge Saturday night, with Hyperion and Ajax.

The blooms were all gone, but we found something else bobbing on top of the seed pods.

While watching this first red-winged blackbird, we heard his buddy chirping nearby.  After some looking, we found him.

I love how his coloring blends in so well with his surroundings, including the two-tone seed pod he is perched on and its stem.  It made him difficult to see, and we would have missed him altogether if he hadn't been making his call.

This second bird in close-up looks like a wise old sage, but his coloring gives him away as a juvenile male - not fully mature.

Is That Spit?

Is that spit?

Nope!  It just looks like it.  It's actually the result of an insect sipping up plant sap and then churning some of its own bodily secretions into a frothy mass.

What insect, you might ask?  A spittlebug, of course.

If we could part the bubbles here, we would see a tiny little creature, resembling a frog.

These spittlebug nymphs create masses of bubbles to hide in, from predators. And it works, too.  Additionally, this saliva look-alike helps maintain an optimum temperature for the little critters, and keeps them from drying out.

Another name for a spittlebug is froghopper.  Froghoppers, by the way, can jump further, relative to their size and weight, than fleas.  Are you impressed?  And the foamy mass?  That is called cuckoo spit, frog spit, and snake spit.  Take your pick.

Clouded Sulphur

The clouded sulphur butterfly is a yellow, medium-sized butterfly with a wing span of about two inches.  Its other names are the common sulphur, and the clouded yellow.  Here's the one I photographed, with his wings folded.

Notice his little antennae, which look like little match sticks.

These butterflies are much more beautiful than this photo can show.  When opened, the wings are rimmed with a smokey black smudge, and have two light-orange spots gracing their yellow wings.

Sulphurs are pollinators, and do good work by flying from flower to flower, drinking the nectar.  In this way they pick up and drop off their cargo of pollen. Some of their favorite plants are clover, milkweed, alfalfa, coneflowers and sunflowers.

These butterflies fly close to the ground and are very fast.  This accounts for why I wasn't able to get any additional photos of this fellow!

Their scientific name is Colias philodice.   The etymology of colias still eludes me, but philodice comes from - you guessed it - Greek mythology.  Philodice was the daugther of the river god, Inachus, and a sister to Io.

Whirlybirds

Every time I verify a fact that I think I know about some plant or animal, I always end up learning lots more than I thought I would.  And that's one of the reasons I love keeping this blog.  Take wind dispersal of tree seed pods, for example.

These seed pods are called helicopters or whirlybirds.  I found them scattered like gems on the shore, practically pulsing with the new life within.

Notice the crook in these pods.  This allows them to be acted upon by the wind in the same way that a helicopter rotor moves through the air.

Others are called spinners, flutterers, gliders and parachutes.  Each category has pods of a certain shape and design, which affects how they maneuver through the air as they make their trip earthward.

Nick, Duncan & Emma

Walking along a little used path, I noticed a rock up on the right.  There hadn't been any other rocks of this size anywhere along the trail, so it caught my attention.

When I got closer, I realized that this rock had gotten other people's attention too, over the years.

A fellow named Nick noticed it on November. 25, 2001.  How do I know? Because he left his mark, carved deeply into the stone.  That was the Sunday after Thanksgiving that year.  (I looked it up.)

Duncan also walked this trail, in what appears to have been 2009.  His printing in this sandstone is even better than most people's writing on paper.  Just look at that lowercase "n".  It's perfect!  Of course when one embeds their name on such a surface, perhaps they take more care, knowing it will be permanent.

And then Emma came along, on an interesting date.  It was November 11, 2011, which was a Friday.  Seems propitious, somehow:  11-11-11.  Or maybe ominous, depending on how you take it.  Based on the appearance of her handiwork, she seems to have been a bold, bright, happy sort of person.

While I would cringe to see such graffiti in one of our national parks, I could not help but wonder about these three, and the other signatories on this rock.  Were they young people from the nearby neighborhood, out rambling with friends through the autumn woods?  Could they be members of the same family who led succeeding generations to mark the rock on purpose?  I'll probably never know.

Beaver Sign

Someone's been busy here - busy as a beaver.

I always enjoy finding beaver sign like this.  Even though I rarely see actual beavers in the wild, it's nice to come by their signature works and know that they are out there, doing what beavers do.

Here's a picture of an old cut:

Occasionally you find an oddity among the beaver works.  Hyperion and I had to laugh when we found this tree:

Did the beaver simply not like the first place he was chewing, and switch to  a different spot?  The time spent on the first cut was not wasted, however. Beavers will sometimes chew just to sharpen their teeth.

I also discovered that the front of their incisors has a harder surface than the back, allowing their teeth to be honed to a fine cutting edge.

The beaver became an officially recognized symbol of Canada in 1975, although its use as a symbol there was introduced as early as 1678.  This was due to the huge significance of the beaver pelt in the early fur trade.

The scientific name, Castor canadensis, comes from kastor (the Greek word for beaver), and the country name of Canada.  (Castor is one the Gemini twins, as in Castor and Pollux, of mythological fame.)

Close & Closer

I found these radiant flowers the other day and had fun getting close to them.

I found that they had dew condensed on their little cone heads, which provided a natural mirror, reflecting the skyline.

Little Pine Cones?

For a long while now, I have seen what I thought were tiny little pine cones on the ground, on certain trails that I walk.  I always seem to notice them when I am in a hurry to get somewhere, and haven't had time to stop and really investigate.  When I did have a few minutes to spare, I would try to photograph them, but my photos always turned out blurry.  Such a disappointment, since the tiny little cones are perfectly enchanting.

I ran into one of these tree again the other day, when I had a long wait in front of me.  With more time on my hands, I began to really look at the cones and where they came from.  It was only then that I realized the tree they came from was deciduous, and not an evergreen!  You can see a good picture of the leaves here:

Well, I finally put a name to the face!  This is an alder tree, and those are NOT pine cones!

There are three major types of alder trees in the continental United States.  Red alders are found almost entirely in the northwest.  Black alders are grown mainly by landscapers.  And then there are grey alders, which I think is what I have photographed here.

The cone-shaped objects are actually the fruits of the tree, and contain tiny seeds within them.  Now I know!