Category: In the Field

The day began brisk and clear for a hike of the northern third of the Appalachian Trail in Maryland, from Pen Mar Park just south of the surveyor’s line laid by Mason and Dixon to our endpoint at Maryland Route 77, a line of asphalt laid by latter engineers. We followed the signs pointing to Georgia.

Senior Naturalist Stephanie Mason of Audubon Naturalist Society set a fast pace so that we could cover the 8.5 miles in 7:30. I was grateful for the quick march, because I had underdressed for the newly Octoberish weather on the ridgeline. This stretch of the trail is fairly flat, with just a 600-foot climb to High Rock, followed by a drop from the peak of 750 feet before climbing again to Raven Rock. But much of the footing is fairly rocky, and with a generous litter of Chestnut Oak leaves, somewhat tricky.

We took the loop branching off the AT to see High Rock, but as this viewpoint is directly accessible by road, the towniness of the place is rather unpleasant.

Better, and more dramatic, are the views from Raven Rock, a couple of miles to the south.

Along the way, we stopped for close looks at Common Witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) in wispy flower (the common name Winter-bloom makes a lot of sense), a handful of Redback Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) under logs, and the fine white stripes (visible under hand lens) on the needles of a White Pine. Much of the Hay-Scented Fern, so much in evidence on September’s walk, is now dried and brown. Generally, when Stephanie stops to point something out, she will ask, “Does anyone know what this is?” and she will follow up with hints and questions, as needed. On this trip, most of the geology questions were answered by the group, since we had my car pool mate Bret along (a staff geologist with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) as well as others who knew their rocks. We looked at a lot of leaves and nuts: bright red Sourgum, Sugar and Red Maple, Sassafras, Sarsaparilla, Yellow and Black Birch, Eastern Hemlock (a few specimens looking almost healthy), Hickory, some sapling American Chestnuts, Tuliptree.

Stephanie paused at the fall of a rather substantial oak to point out the niche ecosystems and topography—so-called pit and mound—formed by treefall.

As we parked at the Kensington Armory this evening to see a show—it was early dusk, about 7:15—we saw a sizable flock of Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) swirling about, ready to come into to roost for the evening. We didn’t find the chimney that they were using, but it is no doubt somewhere nearby.

A good hike today, the Appalachian Trail from I-70 to Maryland 77, led by Cliff Fairweather of Audubon Naturalist Society. We spent a lot of time looking at living things, so we covered the 8.5 miles (or 9.5 miles, no one is quite sure) in 7:45. Not quite a “naturalist’s shuffle,” but leisurely. The path lies between 1300 and 1800 feet on the elevation chart: I measured at most a change of 600 feet. The climbing is not too hard, rising through a long tract of mountain laurel, and most of the walking is fairly easy, but there is a stretch of rocks along the ridgetop of South Mountain that’s good for some knee-twisters (as my left one can attest) and ankle-breakers.

We paused for a look at sawfly larvae on the leaves of an American Chestnut. Only one of the chestnuts we saw was head-height; most were about 3 or 4 feet high. Participant Joe was working on his mycology, so we stopped several times to see many, many fine examples of fungus. We smelled the faint sweetness of Hay-Scented Fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula). Cliff pointed out a saddleback caterpillar that my point-and-shoot was not able to image. Towards the end of the hike, we saw some very dark brown examples of Squawroot (Conopholis americana). Squawroot is a parasitic plant of the Broomrape family, which also includes Beech Drops.

We took side trips to Annapolis Rocks to the west and an unnamed viewpoint to the east. Table Mountain Pine (Pinus pungens) at Annapolis Rocks and a fun little rock scramble to reach the eastern view. Not much in the way of bird life: woodpeckers, a few chickadee friends, Blue Jays imitating hawks, a couple of mystery vocalizations, maybe a tanager? Participation on these hikes is pretty broad, all the way from hikers who don’t stop for much of anything to shoe-gazing botanists. My carpool mate Susan and I were the most experienced birders.

By far the big sighting of the trip was this lovely butter-yellow Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) that sauntered across the track. A first sighting for a lot of us; as for myself, it’s been several years since I’ve seen one of these guys.

A few stragglers:

• Let’s Paint Nature (Illinois, USA)
• Sleeping in the Heartland (Midwestern U.S.)
• Three Oaks (Ohio, USA)

There’s a stretch of the W&OD near my office that I walk about once a week: it rises on an fenced embankment to meet a bridge that crosses Broad Run, so the fence posts are the high ground favored by Indigo Buntings in season. And it also crosses a power line cut and some ground that’s been cleared for development. I’ve seen Wild Turkey down there a couple of times. Anyway, on this evening’s walk, I saw a bird that we don’t seem to see (or notice?) much any more: flying in to perch on a pokeweed stalk replete with berries, a solitary Cedar Waxwing.

More linky goodness:

• osage + orange (Illinois, USA)
• Rock Paper Lizard (British Columbia, Canada)
• The Crafty H (Virginia, USA)
• Chicken Spaghetti (Connecticut, USA)
• A Passion for Nature (New York, USA)
• The Dog Geek (Virginia, USA)
• Blue Ridge blog (North Carolina, USA)
• Bug Girl’s Blog (Michigan, USA)
• chatoyance (Austin, Texas)
• Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA)
• Pines Above Snow(Maryland, USA)
• Beth’s stories (Maine, USA)
• Wanderin’ Weeta (British Columbia, Canada)
• Fate, Felicity, or Fluke (Oregon, USA)
• The Northwest Nature Nut (Oregon, USA)
• Roundrock Journal (Missouri, USA)
• The New Dharma Bums (California, USA)
• The Marvelous in Nature (Ontario, Canada)
• Via Negativa (Pennsylvania, USA)
• Mrs. Gray’s class, Beatty-Warren Middle School (Pennsylvania, USA)
• Cicero Sings (British Columbia, Canada)
• Pocahontas County Fare (West Virginia, USA)

Sharin’ the link love, with reports from:

• Pohanginapete (Aotearoa/New Zealand)
• Blaugustine (London, England)
• Nature Remains (Ohio, USA)
• Pensacola Daily Photo (Florida, USA)
• KatDoc’s World (Ohio, USA)
• Notes from the Cloud Messenger (Ontario, Canada)
• Brittle Road (Texas [?])
• Sherry Chandler (Kentucky, USA)

It’s IRFD today!

I warmed up with a quick look in my back yard. Under the cinder block that holds the back gate closed (long-deferred project) I found an earthworm (order Haplotaxida) and what I take to be a ground cricket (order Orthoptera). I didn’t even see the cricket until I downloaded the photo: I was watching something smaller in the field that doesn’t come out in the image.

I then moved down to the patch where I usually census for the Great Backyard Bird Count, a stretch of The Glade upstream from Twin Branches Road. The vegetation along the stream bank was still flattened by the runoff from storm Hanna, which passed through yesterday.

I found fewer flippable rocks in this area than I expected, so I fudged a little and looked under some logs as well. Hence this nice example of a slug. Land slugs that breathe air get their own order, Pulmonata.

On the way back to the car, my last flip turned up some tiny pale worker termites, order Isoptera. If we count the pillbugs that I didn’t photograph, then my tally for the day is five orders.

Last holiday weekend of the summer and it’s time for the mountains! For yesterday’s hike I picked something that required a bit of a push: the Little Devils Stairs loop hike (PATC Circuit Hikes in Shenandoah National Park 15/e #4), measured at 7.5 miles and 1800 feet of elevation change. Reckoning by my notes, the only other time I’ve climbed Little Devils Stairs was in 1992, that time starting the loop from the parking lot at the end of Virginia SR 614.

This time I started from Skyline Drive, descending along the Keyser Run Fire Road. I’ve explored territory nearby recently when I did the Sugarloaf Trail. The fire road descent is fairly predictable as far as the footing goes. The surprise of this stretch was the unexpected abundance of butterflies—nothing too unusual, Cabbage Whites, swallowtails, Pearl Crescents (in the photo), Silver-spotted Skippers, glimpses of anglewings, perhaps a fritillary—attracted, perhaps, by the moisture seeps from the rainfall two days ago. Midafternoon late-summer birdlife was expectedly slow: some ravens crawking, woodpeckers, flycatchers, a couple of chickadee-based mixed flocks. I heard no vireos.

Down the mountain, near where the fire road turns at its junction with the Hull School Trail is the Bolen family cemetery. The charismatic large vertebrate of the trip was a Black Bear cub who ambled across the trail just inside the park boundary at the gate that ends SR 614. It didn’t stick around for a photo, and I explained to it in a fairly loud voice that I had no intention of getting between it and its mother. I paused to let that sink in before continuing down the trail. I think that’s the first bear I’ve seen in the park.

I made a food stop at a little tributary of Keyser Run before taking on the climb. About 900 feet of the 1650-foot (by my altimeter) climb back to Skyline Drive is up the canyon of Keyser Run, and in the canyon the footing is rock, rock, rocks crossing the run. Generally manageable, nicely shaded from the sun, but there is one shallow chimney that requires a bit of a puff. And at a couple of points the cliffs are exposed on one side or the other, which is good for a whiff of claustrophobia. I paused to take a couple of murky snaps of some Appalachian Browns (Satyrodes appalachia).

3:50 for the circuit. Not bad.

Earlier this month we made our last field trip to monitor nest boxes. The raspberries were ripening, the Typha was eyeball-height, the dodder was showing its bright orange, and Indigo Buntings were singing in the mapletops.

It was a good year for the ducks, with an especially impressive increase in activity from the Wood Ducks. We fledged 97 woodies, a 14-year high. The hoodies did well, too, with 4 successful nests. The area along Lower Barnyard Run was the most intensively used (as it has been for several years), with double clutches in three of the boxes.

A few years ago I started recording our data with Cornell, in what is now the NestWatch program. This year they’ve opened up outside access to the data, at least a little bit. So here’s a map with our summary data.

We also discussed plans for maintenance and box relocation with Park staffer Dave Lawlor. Since construction for the wetland restoration project is now planned for summer, 2009, we’re not going to be doing much work before then—just replacement of a couple of worn-out boxes.

Still one box unhatched as of this morning’s checks. Unfortunately, we’re writing up box #61 as a failed attempt: no eggs, but no shells, so most likely predated. Brief visits from unwanted deer flies as we walked out; I was wet over the tops of my boots as we walked through waist-high lizardtail (Saururus cernuus). Paul found an Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius) in a bare tree in the middle of the Run.

Guest blogger Ann Hall advises the hiker on how to deal with t-storms in the field:

The chances for being caught in a thunderstorm at Dolly Sods are good. Avoid these storms if possible. If, however, you are caught in one of these storms make yourself as unattractive to lightning as possible, stay as dry as possible, then enjoy what you see and hear (since you’re already there).

First hot day of the summer, so what better time for the ceremonial first seasonal exposure of my lower limbs to sunlight? I pointed my car west on I-66, heard the whine of the pavement as I headed for Prince William County and higher elevations beyond.

I hiked the easy-rated Lewis Falls-Blackrock circuit (#19 in the current PATC guide), 4-plus miles with side trips. My notes say that the last time I took this loop was July, 1998. I didn’t record a time then, but this time I went around in 2:15. I measured 900-foot elevation change, so I got my workout.

It’s a fairly popular hike for a summer holiday weekend. Like many of the hikes in the park, it’s deceptive in that you’re walking downhill to get to the attraction (in this case, the little gem of Lewis Falls with its tiny rainbow in the spray). You may be facing a tough climb to get back to your car, as one middle-aged urbanite whom I met on her way back had discovered, to her pain.

The brood of Tufted Titmouse has not left the nest in box #5 yet. The boxes along lower Barnyard Run continue to be the most popular: we have second clutches (all Wood Duck) started in three of the boxes, and all seven of them have been occupied at least once this year.


We had reports of Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola) at a certain spot along the boardwalk where the vegeation opens up and the birds have to break cover, so we stopped to check. About fifteen minutes of waiting and listening was rewarded with good looks at one of two birds. The speculation is that nesting is in progress.