All posts by laurahinnj

Birds, Wanderings

An afternoon at Paul Smith’s

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The Adirondack Interpretive Center is a favorite spot of mine, but visiting it seems to be reserved for rainy days only. After surviving the morning at Bloomingdale Bog, the prospect of napping away the rainy afternoon was pretty tempting, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the area around Paul Smith’s. The hiking trails are beautiful, even in the rain, as they showcase what a healthy forest ecosystem looks like. I’m used to seeing woods overbrowsed by deer and full of poison ivy and honeysuckle. Not so in the Adirondacks. The understory is covered in ferns, wildflowers, and unidentifiable fungi. Any help with this one, Jennifer?

It was an excellent time for wildflowering – the spring was late, so I was treated to things that should already have been past bloom. Twinflower is a dainty little thing and was a favorite of Linnaeus, hence it’s latin name Linnaea borealis. I also found Teaberry and Starflower and Blue-Eyed Grass and huge patches of Bunchberry.

The Adirondacks seem to have the perfect climate for Lupines and other garden flowers. Imagine a field of Lupines and Orange Hawkweed with the High Peaks as a backdrop. Gorgeous! Most well-maintained homes and the storefronts in Lake Placid have huge window boxes full of flowers that wouldn’t last a minute here in NJ’s humidity. I’ll admit to some healthy gardener’s envy! (Though I imagine they can’t grow tomatoes worth a crap.)

😉

Homes in the less-touristy areas are… um, interesting. We spend a lot of time in out of the way places and a drive through Onchiota on the way back to our hotel treated us to a house (?) covered with signs like this. Interesting, no? (This was probably the least offensive of the lot.)

A couple people took naps inside the center or watched the birdfeeders, but most of us braved the rain for a walk to the pond and marsh. Best bird here was an American Bittern that flew lazily over the boardwalk. There were some nice dragonflies and Spatterdock was blooming, too.

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

Bloomingdale Bog

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Hmm… let’s see. I was in the Adirondacks for 4 days and took 244 photos. Assuming that at least half of those are total crap and that I post an average of 5 pics a day, that means you’ll have to listen to me ramble on about this quickie trip for about a month.

Thank your lucky stars I won’t be subjecting you to that.

😉

Except for a few special stories or images, there’s really no other way to do this than day by day. So turn your head if you haven’t the stomach for it. I’ll try to be quick.

We spent Saturday morning in a place called Bloomingdale Bog. The name might sound familiar to some because there was a Northern Hawk Owl there a couple winters ago… I know a few people who made the trek up to see it. Bloomingdale Bog strikes fear in my heart because it’s usually so infested with mosquitos and black flies that it’s a horrendous way to waste time birding, but the bugs were tolerable this year. It’s a great place to find boreal birds.

Bunchberry… my absolute favorite flower from the northwoods… it likes shady, moist acidic soil and was in bloom almost everywhere we went. Down on my knees to photograph them was like looking at a tiny forest of miniature dogwood trees. I wish I could grow this at home.

The soft needles of a tamarack twig… these turn gold in fall and then drop for the winter. Love ’em!

While I was poking around in the leaf litter with the camera, the rest of the group was birding. Imagine that! I don’t know what they were listening for, but they eventually found one *must-see* bird on the trip…

Here they are looking at a Black-backed Woodpecker way up in the top of a black spruce snag. Cool bird… I’ll have some pics to share on another day.

What’s neat to me about a boreal bog is how similiar the plant life is to what I find in the Pine Barrens here in NJ. Those little red bits are British Soldier Lichen amid some type of star moss and reindeer lichen. Star moss is common in the Pine Barrens, but the British Soldiers are a good find there.

Sheep Laurel is also really common in the Pine Barrens, but it was putting on a gorgeous show there in the misty bog. Lest you think I spent all my time goofing off looking at plants, you should know that I was one of only two people to see a Gray Jay – and we saw it only because we were goofing off looking at flowers. So there.

Aww… this is Spencer and he had a grand time in the Adirondacks! A great little dog brought along by someone in our group – he provided much needed boredom relief when the birding was slow. And yes, there’ll be more pics of Spencer.

So… that was Saturday morning before lunch. The birds had been good – Black-backed Woodpecker, Gray Jay, Boreal Chickadee, singing White-throated Sparrows and Juncos (what a treat to hear them in summer!) and Lincoln’s Sparrow. Oh! Forgot to mention that I finally get to add Pileated Woodpecker to my life list – about time, I think. We spotted it along the road just outside of Lake Placid.

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings, Wildflowers

A detour along the way

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As if the ride to Upstate NY wasn’t already long enough, we took a couple hour detour along the way to search for some special sparrows that had recently been seen in a random field about an hour off the thruway. So special that I can’t even remember which sparrows, but I think it may have been Henslow’s. Like any good detour, we didn’t find what we’d been looking for, but instead amused ourselves with what was at hand. There were Bobolinks, always a treat, but as is typical I lost interest after about ten minutes and wandered away with the camera.

If anything convinces me of my ADD tendencies, it’s birding with a group of *serious birders*. You know the type. And then there’s me: wandering around studying the sky in between checking my email, chasing butterflies, cracking jokes or complaining about something, puzzling over wildflowers. Just look at these people! How do they manage such sustained intensity?

😉
The weedy field invited me; up to my knees in birdfoot trefoil and chickory I found a kestral preening on the powerline and hazy hills in the distance. All those flowers at my feet and the insects that tended them kept me interested for a good while.
One nice thing about birding with a varied group of people is that there’s bound to be someone among them who knows the answer to most any question I can dream up. We’re all at least marginally interested in something other than birds and the expertise of others comes in handy. I’d have quickly given up trying to ID this skipper, but Pete knew it right away as a European Skipper (one of two introduced butterflies) and ID’d the flower for me.
There were quite a few fellow plant nerds in the group and we happily geeked our way through the weekend identifying any wildflower we came across, or at least, trying to. We only got so far as to know this was a knapweed; not the Spotted Knapweed that’s so invasive out west, but some other we couldn’t decide on.

This was a nice detour, as they go, but I was so glad to finally get to Saranac Lake and stretch my legs in the bogs and forests of the Adirondacks for the rest of the weekend.

More tomorrow…

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

From Whiteface

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The cloud cover at Whiteface Mountain cleared just enough for us today to enjoy some nice views… (please click on the pic!) I could see Lake Champlain from the summit, but not Montreal. This is a partial view of Lake Placid, btw. There’ll be days of pics (yawn!) when I’ve recovered some and slept. There were singing Bicknell’s and Swainson’s today and a far-off view of a Bald Eagle from the very tip of Whiteface.

😉

Happy to be home.

Birds, Remembering, Snapshots, Wanderings

Gipsy gold

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“Gipsy gold does not chink and glitter. It gleams in the sun and neighs in the dark.” ~attributed to the Claddaugh Gypsies of Galway

I’ll leave you for a few days with an image from North Dakota that’s captured my memory and a small part of my imagination.

Pasture horses. Not the usual pampered racing thoroughbreds I see everyday here in NJ. These were full of curiosity… alarming, almost, in the way they surrounded us when we came upon them. There’s a story to tell, but I haven’t exactly found the way, yet.

I love horses; it’s irrational of me… I’m not some country girl, after all. I don’t want a horse; I just want to be able to look at them. Seeing them makes me wish I knew how to work clay in my hands.

That first morning in North Dakota, I was awake before the sun came up. It was my birthday. I was outside in the near dark, barefoot in the wet grass, wondering at my good luck. The sky was so filled with stars… I could see the Milky Way and birds were waking up around me… strange sounds, but ones that would soon become familiar there… Clay-Colored Sparrow and Western Meadowlark and Common Snipe.

There were unseen horses closeby; I could hear their snorting and soft nickering in the dark.

Magic.

😉

Birds, Wanderings

Heading to the High Peaks

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I’ve hardly made it through half of what I want to tell you about my trip to the prairie and already I’m off to the mountains!

😉

I’m leaving on Friday for a couple days in the Adirondacks; one of my most favorite places. It’s a trip for birds, ostensibly anyway, but the fact is that I’ve already seen most of the specialty birds the area has to offer on past trips there. Except for Spruce Grouse and that’s a long shot, as even the trip leaders admit. I have wonderful memories of Evening Grosbeaks, Boreal Chickadees, Gray Jays, Winter Wrens, Lincoln’s Sparrows, Ravens, and Black-backed Woodpeckers. I don’t much care what birds I see this time. So long as I see some, of course!

I’m more looking forward to hearing the cry of a loon or seeing the spruce and tamaracks mirrored in a lonely pond. Standing at the summit of Whiteface Mountain with alpine plants at my feet and Lake Champlain and Quebec off in the distance, while Bicknell’s Thrush sings somewhere below me. Waking to morning mist rising from the lake outside my door. Paddling that lake for an hour or two between birding and dinner. Watching the stars for a few quiet hours each night…

In the neighborhood, Snapshots, Whatever

I’ve never been to Sea World…

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so dolphins in the neighborhood are pretty exciting… life mammal!

They’re not supposed to be here, certainly not in the river where they’ve been seen for the last week or so. Given the odd geography of Sandy Hook Bay and this summer’s early warm water temps, it’s thought that they took a detour into the Shrewsbury River by mistake. Fish and Wildlife is concerned with the upcoming 4th of July holiday (and the 20,000 plus boats it brings to my neighborhood) that the dolphins may need to be ushered back into the bay so they can safely find their way back to the open ocean.

Remembering, Small truths

Do you believe in magic?

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My dad was cremated with a dollar bill in his pocket; the same dollar he’d carried in his wallet for some thirty-five plus years. Being sure that dollar stayed with him, even then, was a meaningful act on the part of my brothers and I. A ritual we observed.

The dollar bill was something like a talisman to my dad. It had been given to him as a form of repayment by his first-born son, my brother Neil, sometime before he died as a child from aplastic anemia. My dad never was able to tell me what exactly Neil was repaying him for, without becoming tearful and angry, so that part of the story is lost to me. But I’d always understood the sentiment behind him carrying it in his wallet all those years.

I have a few such talismans myself; physical signs of relationships with people and places and experiences. Symbols of connection and reconnection, union and reunion with what is sacred to me. Carried in a pocket or wallet, worn around my neck or on a finger, secreted away in shoeboxes and drawers.

Parting with any of them would be difficult for me; each has its story, each is connected to some important event or place in my life. Each is the physical proof that I believe in magic; that I honor the ritual of rememberance.

To describe any of it or try explaining it would, perhaps, lessen the magic. Someday though, these keepsakes of mine will be found, and someone will wonder what they were about.

Think about the things you surround yourself with. Look on you and around you. Your closet, the jewelry box, your purse, your wrist, the desk where you spend hours each day. Much of what others might see as simple adornment or, heaven forbid, dust-collectors may really represent the power of love and rememberance. Tokens of an on-going connection, rituals of place and time and people.

I propose that we should choose one object from that treasure chest of memory and share it with someone else… best if it can be a person directly related to the keepsake. Dust it off and polish the memory… tell what it is that provokes your imagination so, tell why it has such power for you, tell what makes it magic.

😉

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

Straight out of the field guide

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“The ecstatic upland plover, hovering overhead, poured praises on something perfect: perhaps the eggs, perhaps the shadows, or perhaps the haze of pink phlox that lay on the prairie.” –Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

God I love it when birds do what they’re supposed to… and then pose for pix while at it!

😉

We’d nearly missed this roadside Upland Sandpiper as we chased the tour bus along the prairie trail heading to Chase Lake NWR, but a quick stop and then a very slow progression forward, all the while hoping the bird wouldn’t fly off, let me have my fill of pix hanging out the sunroof of the car like a crazed photographer. I got lots of nice pics, but this one is today’s favorite.

Not a life bird for me, but I couldn’t have asked for any nicer looks at it. Can’t you just imagine it soaring high in the blue skies of a North Dakota spring, its long, drawn out song drifting down over a sunny meadow…

Dog days, Snapshots, Wanderings

Escaping along with everyone else

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I almost didn’t go to the Pine Barrens today when this was what greeted me at the entrance to the Parkway. Ughh… shore traffic. I was committed, at least until the next exit some five miles further south, but thankfully the standstill was due to an accident and the traffic cleared just when I could have made my exit.

An hour or so later this beetle caught my eye as it meandered through the sand and grass while I sat in the car eating my lunch. I stepped out for a pic, leaving the remainder of my sandwich unattended, and came back to find the sandwich gone. Had I mentioned that Luka was along for this adventure? Anyone care to save me the trouble of looking it up in a field guide? It reminds me of the beetle in the header at Mutual Casualty but I don’t know that one either.

As often happens with a visit to the barrens, I happen upon something accidentally that I’d purposefully searched for at some prior visit. Today it was two wildflowers that I’d endured a sweaty deer-fly infested hike searching for early last summer. This one is Swamp Candle; a yellow loosestrife that can grow so abundantly in cranberry bogs that it gives a pretty yellowish haze to the bog. It’s considered a nuisance in commercially operated bogs, but I was happy to find it today.

This one made me really happy – orange milkwort – showy and impossible to miss. On my knees taking pics I also found a blooming thread-leaved sundew and a few other tiny little wildflowers that I haven’t made up an ID for yet.

The water in the bogs is controlled by dikes and in those places where it was fast flowing there were ebony jewelwings patrolling the margins. A beautiful damselfly, I think; very fluttery and nice.
My idea with bringing Luka along on this particular adventure was so that he could do some swimming at our favorite hidden spot along Cedar Creek. Turns out our secret swimming hole is better known than I’d realized – the place was packed with paddlers stopping for a swim, too. Some were kind enough to amuse Luka with a really big stick. Turns out he’s a good swimmer since our last visit in the fall.

The cranberries are blooming now and I was surprised to see quite so many beehives along the dikes. Each field of 3 active bogs had a stack like this, busy with honeybees keeping Ocean Spray in business. Luka had a tussle with a bunch of them while I paying attention to something else – there was much fussing and rolling in the sand – but I don’t think he was stung more than a couple times. Dopey dog!

Cranberry flowers are very tiny and the plants grow *wild* along the margins of most cedar streams in the barrens; a particular delight of paddling there in the fall is the chance to sample a couple. The same plant is cultivated commercially and then harvested just in time for Thanksgiving dinner. The flower is deeply lobed and curled back on itself to expose the stamens. Early settlers saw the neck, head and beak of a crane and so called it *crane-berry*.

Another beautiful day in one of my favorite places. Plus, Luka’s tuckered out, finally.

😉