Outside at Brookside – November 2016

On the day I went to photograph mums at Brookside Gardens, I also made my normal loop walk around the gardens. The first segment is the boardwalk between the conservatory parking lot and the Nature Center. The boardwalk was dusted with leaves. The ferns were still green but the thick undergrowth that blocked the view of the Cyprus knees further along had died and they were visible again as they will be until next spring when the skunk cabbage grows again.

I was there early enough that the sunlight cast a warm glow on the stones of the scent garden.

There were robins – looking a little scruffy – looking for food in the leaves.

I took pictures of single leaves on the ground all along the way and they are included in the slide show below. Can you identify the maple, several oaks, tulip poplar, redbud and gingko?

A gingko was dropping its leaves quickly and there were drifts of them along the path.

The Japanese tea house overlooks the pond – this time without geese or turtles around.

There were some surprise bulbs blooming - perhaps a fall crocus.

Many of the leaves had already fallen but there were some swaths of color.

Here’s a path that has an ‘icing’ of leaves (mostly maple) to top of mulch.

Some oaks have leaves that look very red in bright sunlight but brown on the ground. The light was bringing-out-the-red on this tree.

On the path – within sight of the conservatory again – a squirrel made enough noise in the leaves for me to notice and was still while eating an acorn….I took the picture.

The gingko near the conservatory seemed to have more leaves than the one I’d walk by earlier. Some were still tinged green.

In a pot – someone had stacked a small pumpkin on a larger white one…a little cairn like we saw a few weeks ago in State College.

There was some lantana blooming nearby and a skipper was enjoying a meal.

There is always something new to see at Brookside.

Centennial Park – November 2016

The walk at Centennial Park was full of fall color a week ago when I took these pictures. I took a lot of pictures with the reflections of trees in the water. The leaves on many of the tallest trees like tulip poplar had already lost a lot of their leaves but the maples and sweet gums – the reds – were still plentiful and the beeches provides some yellow. The oaks still had some green. My favorite of these pictures is the one that include the rocks that are beside the boat launch; they break up the reflection with their smoothed surfaces.

Then zoomed in on some leaves – maple

And oak.

There were also seed pods along the shore of the lake that I recognized – goldenrod

And Queen Anne’s Lace.

Every time I go to the park there is something to photograph….this time is was ‘fall.’ (Last time it was ‘birds’.)

Raking Leaves – 2

I started raking leaves toward the middle of October and still have quite a lot to do based on the leaves still clinging to the trees. Even the oak that was my focus in October still has some leaves – although there are noticeably fewer still on the tree. I’ve raked the area around the purple-leaved plum tree too although the tree still has leaves on it too; they don’t change color – they just fall. They are more fragile than the oak leaves and compress more easily into the trash can.

I noticed a small pine tree growing in the mulch of oak tree.  Maybe a squirrel planted a pine nut there? If it survives the winter – I’ll dig it up in the spring and move it someplace where it can grow more easily.

I’ve also noticed that a small azalea that is about 25 years old has turned red this fall when the sun shines on it. It looks good in front of the green bushes…and I should do some weeding around it while I’m out raking leaves.

In the back – I rake the leaves back into the forest. The maple is just beginning to drop its leaves. They fall more rapidly than the oak leaves once they start. Every breeze makes the tulip poplar and maple leaves swirl away from the trees. I’ve made one pass so far….and know that there will be at least one more…probably two…over the next week or so.

Back to Standard Time

Maple“Spring forward…Fall Back” – the “Fall Back” happened yesterday. It’s the twice-a-year mass coordination drill to switch to and from daylight savings time. It’s been happening for as long as I can remember (although according to Wikipedia, the Federal standard in the US didn’t happen until 1966…so when I was young and living in Oklahoma and then Texas, we didn’t switch). I can remember a conversation at a great aunt’s house about an old wall clock that she left on standard time because it was too fragile or difficult to re-set so frequently.

 The ‘fall back’ is easier than the ‘spring forward.’ Sleeping an hour later than usual is not as hard as waking up an hour earlier! Yesterday I didn’t quite sleep a whole hour later but I did manage 30 minutes and today my internal clock is re-set for the mornings. I am still not as sleepy at the new bedtime though!

I am a morning person so the earlier sunlight right now is appealing. Soon the days will be short enough that it will dark (again) when I get up. For now – we are enjoying the fall color and the new skew of the day to give us earlier sunlight!Oak

Raking Leaves – 1

I have a ‘little at a time’ strategy for leaf raking this year rather than waiting for the majority to fall before doing some marathon raking sessions. Almost none of the leaves have even turned on the maple….the few red one stand out against a green backdrop.

But the oak has dropped about half and the purple leafed plum is shedding too. I raked the areas with the most leaves before my husband mowed late last week – letting the lawn mower chop up and distribute the few leaves that remained.

I measure my raking progress by the number of trashcan loads I take back to the brush and leaf pile in the forest. I compress the leaves to reduce the number of treks from the front yard (where the oak tree is) to the back. So far, I’ve done 5. The leaves from the trees in the back yard I’ll rake directly into the forest – no trashcan involved!

More than an Oak

I noticed a strange looking structure on the trunk of an oak at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. It is easy to imagine that it is the head of monster coming out of the tree with orange eyes!

It is probably a crown gall caused by a bacterium (Agrobacterium tumefaciens) which enters the tree through a wound; in this case it could have been a branch that broke. The bacterium transfers a portion of its genetic material into the oak tree cells causing the unusual growth and some substances that the tree does not normally produce – but that the bacterium utilizes! The gall can impede nutrient flow in the tree -particularly if it girds the tree.

In this case, the gall itself appears to be hosting some shelf fungus – the bright orange structures. The tree looked robust overall and the only place where shelf fungi were growing was on the gall. So maybe the shelf-fungi are doing their normal decomposer role on the gall only! I’ll look for the tree again summer when we go to see the lotuses at Kenilworth.

Four Days of Belmont Bioblitz

I spent Monday through Thursday of this week at the Belmont Bioblitz. Fifth grade students from 2 elementary schools participated on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday and Thursday it was seventh graders from a middle school. The observations the students logged into the iNaturalist app will be used to refine the Belmont Species List; the list originated from previous Bioblitz events at Belmont. All four days started our similarly – the volunteers gathering in the morning to help the staff prepare. It was quiet enough for some birds (like the nuthatch below) to be at the feeders near the nature center; the feeders would get refilled before the students arrived.

The volunteers would gather in a long line across the drive from the Manor House where the buses would eventually pull up.

Turning around - the swallows and red-winged black birds swooped over the grasses and down to the pond. The volunteers enjoyed the past bit of calm.

And then the buses arrive – almost hidden by the trees as they first come through the entrance gate.

Then more visible as they get closer. The students pour out of the buses and into groups - each with a chaperone (or 2) and 2 volunteers. The volunteers have been assigned zones where their group will focus for the duration of the morning.

Trees are easy to document although the blooms of the horse chestnut were already fading by Monday.

The leaves still were distinctive enough to make identification easy.

The pecan was a popular entry into iNaturalist – one of the native trees that produces something we eat.

Many students were surprised that there are different kinds of oaks – easy to tell by just looking at their leaves.

There were toads hanging out near the pool on the first three days – laying eggs.

They liked the wells around the pool where the water was shaded by the cover.

By the fourth day they were mostly gone and we found one further away into the trees and brushy area.

On Tuesday it rained and on Wednesday, the participants found quite a few mushrooms in several areas where the grass is mowed.

One the last day – the highlight (for me) was a lacewing one of the students managed to capture. We photographed it in a magnifying box

Then released it….it paused for a few seconds for me to get one last picture.

At the end of each day - there is hand washing and then a picnic lunch. On Monday and Thursday, the picnic was on the lawn in front of the Manor House. On Tuesday is raining and the BioBlitz picnic was inside the big tent used for weddings at Belmont. The students sat on the carpet under candeliers. The same location was used for Wednesday too since the lawn was still very soggy.

After lunch - it's time for the students to return to school on their buses...the Belmont Bioblitz field trip is over. But - the collection of pictures and descriptions in iNaturalist has grown each day of the event - quite an accomplishment.

January Sunrise

January is an excellent month for photographing the sunrise from our front porch: the days are still short so sunrise happens well after my normal time to get up and there are no leaves on the tress to block the view. A little over a week ago – I was lucky enough to catch a sunrise with the moon and Venus visible!

A little later on the same morning I focused on using the sunrise color behind some of our trees. This is the oak. The buds look large for January. They may have started swelling with the warm weather we had in December and early January.

The crepe myrtle has a lot of dried pods that make it look ‘decorated’ all winter long. It makes a good morning silhouette.