We did our last full check of all the nest boxes on Sunday. Three more boxes hatched out; one box with only two eggs was apparently predated. We have two boxes with eggs remaining that M.K. will check as she is checking warbler boxes.
Val Kitchens and others have reported sightings of Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) in the park, but we were not so fortunate to spot the bird. As a hemi-marsh breeder, it’s a bird of special interest to park management.
M.K. showed us photos of the two snakehead fish that Dave Lawlor and staff took from the waters around box #13.
Up at the north end of the wetland, where we find all the trash that washes down from the subdivisions, the Lizard’s Tail (Saururus cernuus) was waist-high, making trash-picking a non-project. Would that the damselfly in this image had busied itself with the mosquitoes that were chomping on me.
At this same (very wet) location, I snapped a couple images of this purple-pink blooming milkweed, which I had identified previously as Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). But take a look at the leaves, with the veins forming an almost right angle with the midrib. Newcomb keys this plant out as either Purple Milkweed (A. purpurascens) or Red Milkweed (A. rubra).
Furthermore, over by the observation tower, in the drier flat that is managed for meadow, milkweeds were in fuller bloom.
I need to go back and take a closer look at the underside of the leaves and the flowers. Milkweed flowers consists of a corona of five erect “hoods,” with a curved horn jutting from each hood. The size and configuration of hoods and horns is an ID key.
The species checklist prepared by the friends organization says that A. purpurascens is found in the park. Newcomb describes the habitat for A. purpurascens as “dry fields and thickets,” which is a better match for the meadow by the tower. Newcomb locates A. rubra in “wet pinelands and bogs,” which more closely describes the conditions at the north end of the wetland.