September 25, 2022: Fall Flowers Arrive

As we move deeper into fall the colors of the Lakes Region start to change.  Leaves are still predominantly green though more and more hints of yellow and red appear as the leaves slowly lose their chlorophyll-based green pigment.  Most of the summer flowers have faded - though a few stubborn black-eyed Susans soldier on - but the fall flowers now get their moment in the spotlight.  One of the most recognizable late-summer, early-fall flower is the turtlehead which grows in wet areas and is often found at the edge of the lake or other wetlands.  It gets its name because the bloom resembles the head of a turtle.

Turtleheads (Chelone glabra) growing along the shoreline.

The petals never really open up wide, forming an enclosed blossom with a small hole at the end.

All the good parts of the flower are inside the blossom.

Turtlehead is an excellent filter for water runoff and holds soil well so it prevents erosion - it's an ideal species to plant along the water's edge, by retention pools, wet areas prone to erosion, and on borders of rain gardens.

Each turtlehead flower contains both the male and female parts needed to reproduce, but it requires a pollinator to move the pollen between the parts inside the flower.  Similar to the Lady's slipper, the enclosed flower forces insects in search of nectar to climb inside the blossom where it rubs against the various sex parts of the plant, spreading pollen to the required areas to make seeds.  It's a brilliant adaptation, and while looking at some of these plants I witnessed the pollination process in action.  A bumblebee (the most most common pollinator of turtleheads because large, fuzzy bumblebees can survive colder fall temperatures) flew down to sample a flower.

Bumblebee on the approach path.

I watched it land and climb inside the blossom.

In we go.

It completely disappeared in side for perhaps a minute while it was collecting all the pollen it could find before climbing out and buzzing away.

Doing its thing in there.

There'll be more turtleheads next year!  It's a symbiotic relationship:  The bumblebee gets food and the turtlehead gets to propagate its genes.  Life on planet earth is dependent on pollinators in so many ways.

Autumn is also the time for asters, of many varieties and I don't know what they all are called.  Some are very tall, four or five feet in height.

This wild calico aster planted itself by the house and now towers over Linda's day lilies.

I think this one is a calico aster.  Colors range from white to yellow to lavender, sometimes with a reddish hue.  

The pearly everlasting doesn't look like the typical aster, but it's also in the aster family.

Pearly-everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea)

This plant spreads well and the flowers last for several weeks.

This patch expands its footprint every year.

One of my favorite little flowers that pops up this time of year isn't an aster.  Like the lady's slipper, it's in the orchid family and like so many flowers this one is also pollinated by bees.

Nodding Ladies' Tresses

This is also a great time to enjoy the bright colors of goldenrod though I didn't come across much in my travels this week.  But if you're in a field and see brilliant waves of yellow, look closely at the flowers to see what's pollinating them.  And remember, goldenrod isn't actually a cause of allergies - it's usually the ragweed that often accompanies the goldenrod.  You can read why goldenrod gets an unwarranted reputation in this article from the UNH Extension Service.  

Small unknown beetles collecting pollen from goldenrod.

On a whim I went to see if I could identify these beetles and sure enough, they are well known beetles on goldenrod and are called, appropriately enough, Shiny Flower Beetles.  Something to look into on another day.

September 18, 2022: Butterfly Questions

Last week I saw monarch butterflies in the fields, and this week I saw a different bright orange and black butterfly right at the house.  

Another bright orange butterfly.

In addition to the monarch I recognize a couple of other butterflies with primarily orange colors including the painted lady and the fritillary, but this one was none of those.  What really caught my eye was the way it folded its wings flat and straight up in the air, and the fact that when resting like this it looked completely different.

Looking like a dead leaf.  Note the partly unfurled proboscis.

I thought it looked so much like a dead leaf that if it were in the woods it would be perfectly camouflaged and invisible to predators.  It sat on a piece of clothing that was left on the railing and uncurled its proboscis to probe the cloth.

That curly white mark on its wing is significant.

I have no idea what it thought it might find there.  

The combination of bright coloring on one side of its wings and drab brown on the other side made it easy to narrow down its identity to just a couple of species of brushfoot family butterflies.  But there are two that are quite similar with one clear identifying feature:  The white curly line with a dot beside it on the outside of its wings that someone thought looked like a question mark.  Thus the common name for this butterfly:  "Question Mark"  The very similar "comma" butterfly lacks the dot, thus its common name is ",".

There were a few other insects to be enjoyed this week.  One, small and pretty, is this  Snowy Tree Cricket:

Snowy Tree Cricket

I don't know that I'd ever seen this insect before and I wouldn't have guessed it to be a cricket - I didn't even know there were any other crickets beyond the usual black Field Crickets that serenade us on warm summer evenings.  Now that I've listened to the call of the tree cricket (which is much more musical than the sharp chirp of the field cricket) I realize I heard them all the time but didn't know what they were.  You can listen to it here, and the video also shows the action of their wings which they rub together to make the sound.  And you can blame the summer racket on the guys - only the males can "sing", and naturally, they do this to attract the gals.

One last insect to share might be less exciting for some to see:

Dock Spider.

I'll bet this is the same spider I saw a few weeks (August 28, 2022), the one I saw jump off a rock onto the water and right back up again.  It looks like she's had no problem finding plenty to eat.  I'm assuming its a female because it's so big.

One big momma.

Males are about half the size of females.  But enough creepy crawlers.  Let's end with a peaceful moment brought to you by Maddie and her mom.

Nap time on Lake Wicwas

I think our northern loon pair has left the lake as Maddie and her parents are now fishing throughout their section of the northern end of the lake.  Maddie will be here for another month or two though her parents may leave weeks before she does.  Change is coming.

September 11, 2022: Hummingbirds

Starting in late summer Linda lets her coleus plants go to seed.  In addition to having thousands of pretty little flowers they are great for attracting pollinators and, yes, hummingbirds.  It amazes me that they can get a meaningful amount of nectar from those miniature blooms, but they must because they spend a lot time there every day.

A female ruby-throated hummingbird works its way around the coleus blossoms.

It will go systematically around each flower spike, spiraling up or down taking just an instant to probe its beak into every flower.

Hummingbirds use their tail feathers actively in maintaining their position.

After watching them closely it dawned on me how precise their flying ability is.  They are airborne, hovering with two flapping wings, yet they accurately stab that beak right into the target - I've never seen them miss and have to try again.  The precision control of their spatial orientation is incredible.

Their ability to hover is unique among birds and is made possible by its shoulder having a ball and joint construction which allows hummingbirds to rotate their wings 180 degrees.  They don't flap their wings, but rather rotate them.  When hovering stationary their wings move in a figure eight pattern so they provide lift throughout the wing pattern.

High speed wings and the ability to hover enables that long beak to hit the bullseye.

There seems to be one dominate bird that thinks it owns all the plants and it chases away anyone trying to steal its nectar.  One day I even watched it chase a bumblebee which dared to land on its flowers.  The bee wasn't readily scared off and the hummingbird kept stabbing at it until it finally buzzed off.  Later, it or another bee returned when the hummingbird wasn't watching over its claim.

The bee will feed while the bird's away.

The bumblebee wasn't nearly as methodical as the hummingbird, taking a somewhat random path through the flowers as seen in this video of a bumblebee on Linda's begonias:

According to my field guides the ruby-throated humming bird is the only hummingbird found in the eastern United States.  It will soon be departing on its fall migration where it follows a path along the Appalachian Mountains on its way to its winter grounds in Central America.  Hummingbirds fly about 25 miles an hour, though they can double that when diving.  On their migration they only cover about 25 miles per day, so they must spend a fair amount of time resting and feeding.

Fall is prime feeding time for many animals preparing for winter, whether they are stocking up for a cold winter in New Hampshire or storing energy for a long trip south.  The later is the case for monarch butterflies that hatch this late in the summer, the last of four or five generations of monarchs that hatch each summer.  Earlier in the season monarch butterflies live for several weeks and lay eggs on a milkweed plant - because that is the only plant monarch caterpillars eat.

Monarch on a milkweed plant at Page Pond Town Forest.

I didn't think to look for eggs on the underside of the milkweed leaves, but I'll bet they were there.

Perhaps this monarch is laying eggs right now.  Do spiders eat butterfly eggs?

After hatching, the caterpillars will eat milkweed leaves for several weeks, molting multiple times as they grow before they finally form their chrysalis.  To ensure their chrysalis will survive they will crawl to another plant such as a small tree or shrub that is robust enough to support their transformation into an adult butterfly.  I found this chrysalis on a woody plant just a few feet from milkweed plants.

A clear, translucent chrysalis means the butterfly is almost ready to emerge.

But this late in the season this last generation of monarch butterflies won't lay eggs once they complete their metamorphosis.  In fact, to help them make the marathon trip south to Mexico they won't even develop reproductive organs yet.  Only once they're in warm weather and the days are longer will their reproductive systems develop.

The Meredith Conservation Commission is leaving a different portion of the fields at the Page Pond Town Forest un-mowed each year to provide food and habitat for a large range of animals that depend on this underrepresented habit in New Hampshire.  Monarch butterflies are one example; the Northern Bobolink seen here earlier in the season is another, and American Woodcock is yet another.   Most fields in New Hampshire are mowed several times a year which precludes these field animals from breeding.

Mowed and un-mowed sections of the Page fields.

September is the perfect time to take a walk in a field, the woods, or the mountains.  Days are cooler, the air is clear and dry, and animals are becoming more active again.  Any walk in nature this time of year is bound to reward one with beautiful moments.

Page Brook seen from the bog bridge on the Yellow Trail at Page Pond Town Forest.

September 4, 2022: Forestry Lessons

This week I attended a public forestry tour at the Page Pond Town Forest in Meredith sponsored by the Meredith Conservation Commission.  It was led by Dan Stepanauskas, a highly qualified forester who focuses on forest and wildlife habitat improvement, and he passed on a tremendous amount of information to the attendees.  One of the highlights for me was seeing this stand of hemlock trees which he estimates to be 350 years old.

Hemlocks estimated to be 350 years old.

That means these trees have witnessed American history from the time before there was an America - back to King Phillip's war.  I don't know why these trees escaped the axe; most of the old-growth trees I see in the Lakes Region are twisted, gnarly, knotty trees with no timber value so the loggers left them behind.

They couldn't get a good board out of this crooked white pine.

An important exception to this is sugar maples.  These weren't cut because they provided a cash crop for the land owner.  There are still several old-growth sugar maples in the Hamlin Conservation Area and the Red Trail takes you right through them. 

One of several remaining ancient sugar maples on the Red Trail

The average life span of a sugar maple is 200 years (though they can live over 300 years).  The few trees that are still hanging on in Hamlin are showing their age and won't last too much longer.

The old maples are showing their age.

On the tour I also learned about black oak, a species I wasn't familiar with, as well as black birch, a tree with a beautiful sweet aroma when the twigs are scraped.  This is the tree that's tapped to make birch beer; appropriately, it's also known as sweet birch.  

Back on Lake Wicwas I enjoyed some late summer bird watching, including brilliant goldfinches tearing into the seed pods of black-eyed susans and evening primrose. 

A male goldfinch feasts on evening primrose seeds.

They are not particularly neat diners.

He needs a napkin.

On a kayak yesterday I came across a bird I always think of as a shore bird though I have seen them on the lake several times. 

A sandpiper on the lake.

I think this is a solitary sandpiper; I've also seen spotted sandpipers at the lake.

Finally, our little Maddie isn't so little anymore. 

Mom and Maddie.

She's now lost most of her baby fuzz, revealing more and more of her juvenile plumage.

Photo by Debby Crowley

Maddie spends most her time with mom while dad's fishing nearby.

Mom, as seen by her bands, splashes water in Maddie's face.  She didn't seem to mind.

But dad brings fish to her when he catches the right one.

Maddie chokes down another good size fish.

With all that attention from her parents she's grown quickly and at this point the likelihood of her surviving to adulthood is high. It's never a sure thing, but as large as she is now, I expect she'll have no problem making it until she flies off to the mighty Atlantic in November.