Category: In the Field

Between festivals, I stopped by Thuya Garden and Asticou Azalea Garden in Northeast Harbor — two lovely spots. The framing of the views in Asticou is exquisite. I figured out that Moosewood is the Down East name for our Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum). This was the first one that I’d seen in flower.

Lots of sights and sounds and smells at the festival. A Maine-sized thank you to trip leaders Fred Galenski, Amy Zipperer, Woody Gillies, Maury Mills, Amy Meehan, Bill Kolodnicki, Susan Cline, and Capt. Andy Patterson of the Barbara Frost, who took us on a safe but thrilling ride to Machias Seal Island for the first lifers of my trip.

My big target for this trip was Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica), but upon further inspection, I find the thin white lines on a Razorbill (Alca torda) more appealing.

I’ve seen Common Murres (Uria aalge) before, but only in the Pacific, so the bridled form (peculiar to the Atlantic) was new to me.

Back on land, Alder Flycatcher (Empidonax alnorum) was new to my ABA Area list (#419), a pleasant surprise when I compiled my notes from a visit to the Edmunds Unit of Moosehorn NWR. Guides pointed out the bird along this alder-lined stream. In the Barings Unit of the refuge, we heard Whip-Poor-Will (Caprimulgus vociferus) responding to recordings (no tick for me, since I don’t count heard-only birds).

I was prepared to see craggy shores and tumultuous headlands, as at West Quoddy Head

and Campobello Island, but

I wasn’t expecting an abundance of bogs and bog-specialty plants: Baked-apple Berry (Rubus chamaemorus) and Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea). Nor was I expecting to see bluets blooming like weeds in people’s yards.

I was looking specifically for Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) and found it in several places. Guides also pointed out Starflower (Trientalis borealis), as well as

a clump of Alder Leaf Beetles (Agelastica alni). A rather larger animal, a Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum), crossed the road in front of me on my way to the dock at Cutler. In the category of even-larger mammals, we saw Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) and one or two Gray Seals (Halichoerus grypus) on the way back from Machias Seal Island.

Interrupted Fern (Osmunda claytoniana) is common here (as at home): I’ve never seen such strong color difference between the spore-bearing part of the plant and the rest of it.

Mystery lichen of the trip was a bright orange species, particularly fond of calcium-rich stone, like those used in the Lubec town cemetery.

Bonus francophone music for the road provided by ICI Musique.

Still working on a cumulative bird species tally for the trip.

And I do like my lighthouses: Little River Light at left, West Quoddy Head Light at right.

After my trip to the Dogwood Collection earlier this month to get a snap of the plaque honoring Louisa King, I returned to get a look at the trees in bloom. Protip: The garden was peopleless at 8:00 of a Saturday morning, right after the gates opened.

Neil Fitzpatrick and Bill Yeaman led a walk to Rock Creek and the fish ladder established in 2007 to enable migratory river herring to swim around the man-made barrier of the dam at Peirce Mill. And our luck was great! Despite some muddy conditions in the stream, many Gizzard Shad (Dorosoma cepedianum) could be seen, working their way upstream. Alas, no acceptable photos acquired. (Note to future self: bring a longer lens and a little more patience.)

On our walk down the somewhat trippy Melvin Hazen Trail, the group spotted a single Louisiana Waterthrush (Seiurus motacilla).

From my report for last Sunday:

The birds appear to have hit the snooze button in response to the variable weather conditions. None of the nest has hatched out yet, while three new nests have started. Ever-popular box #62 is still incubating.


Unfortunately, it appears that the nest in box #67 has been abandoned. And the predator guard for box #60 was no match for a determined Common Raccoon (Procyon lotor), who consumed the eggs in the box. Box #60 is set rather low to the ground, on the bank of the channel; we should think about raising it or otherwise repositioning it.


We chased some paper wasps from box #67. I was cautious about seeing a wasp with yellow bands on the abdomen (as well as some wasps showing the more common all-black coloration), but it seems that several of the Polistes wasps in our area may show that feature, including the introduced P. dominula.

Cathy Stragar and Stephanie Mason led a walk Sunday down the C&O Canal towpath from Point of Rocks to Monocacy, rescheduled from a rainy February day, and it was worth the delay: enough sun, not too cool, calm winds. And surprisingly birdy: I had 29 species on my list, and I think that the group detected a couple more. Top birds were a resting Barred Owl (Strix varia), spotted while we went off trail to measure the circumference of a 90-year-old Silver Maple; swarms of clean white-and-black Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis) drifting over farm fields; and skeins of migrating Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus), extremely high in the sky, identifiable only by voice. We nearly ran the table on mid-Atlantic woodpeckers, missing only (as you might expect) the Red-headed.

TIL the broken and peeled twigs of Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) smell (to me) like stale bittersweet chocolate.

Up and down the trail, the flowers of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) were just starting to peep out from their shielding foliage.

Cathy pointed out winter stoneflies that were starting to emerge, and she found the single Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) that had opened up.

At river’s edge, a venerable Silver Maple was holding on. We covered the six miles in about 6:45, which is fast for this bunch of naturalists.

Sunday afternoon, I crossed over to the east side of the city to walk, bird, and botanize with Matt Salo in two parks in Cheverly, Md.: the Nature Park and the wilder bits of Cheverly-Euclid Neighborhood Park. The Nature Park, located at the highest point in Cheverly, is notable for populations of Chestnut Oak (Quercus montana) and Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia). This location might be home to the nearest patches of Mountain Laurel to the District line.

There wasn’t too much happening with the birds, but we did turn up some earthstars (likely Geastrium triplex) near a patch of moss.

Cheverly’s bedrock is the Potomac Group from the lower Cretaceous, sand-gravel and silt-clay units. Nevertheless, I am surprised by the sometimes steep topography of this area. It doesn’t feel like we’re on the Coastal Plain at all.

The Euclid park doesn’t have organized trails, just deer trails and social trails. Matt and a group of volunteers are managing a clearing for native grasses and Liatris pilosa. We glimpsed a Bald Eagle in the air, and heard at last one Barred Owl.

On the Sunday after our brief snows, I made a very fast trip to the Glade. Only 15 species in 0:45, and a couple of expected species that didn’t show. But I got my RSHA.

Stephanie Mason and Cathy Stragar led a walk to two locations along the Prince George’s side of Jug Bay. Snow flurries as I arrived at the park; up in the woods, out of the wind, temperatures were tolerable. We focused on plants and animals that manage to make a living, a little photosynthesis, under cold winter conditions. We enjoyed lightly scratching the bark of thin-barked trees like American Beech and Carpinus caroliniana to see the green evidence of chlorophyll just underneath. We stopped for drifts of evergreen lycopodium nearly covering the forest floor, not shaded out now that the leaves are down. The fuzzy underside of the dead but moist leaf of a Mockernut Hickory is quite pleasantly velour-y.

We drive to Selby’s Landing, and then walked down to the bridge over Mattaponi Creek. A new birder in our group got a look at a small museum of Cedar Waxwings, feeding on Winterberry.

On a drizzly Sunday morning, Carole Bergmann led a walk through Blockhouse Point Conservation Park. Fall colors were quite good, the Pawpaws getting ready to drop their leaves. This Sensitive Fern is packing it in for the season.

Fellow walker Tom was our fungi maven. At left, he ID’d this cespitose cluster of stipes as Pholiota squarrosoides. And for a second non-polypore fruiting from the trunk of a tree, he also called Hericium erinaceus, at right.