The plants here on the Coastal Plain reflect an acidic soil: some lingering Kalmia latifolia blooms, but mainly fruit; blueberries dominating the herbaceous and understory layers in many places.

The Goose Pond is a tranquil spot, at least looking in the opposite direction from the water control structure.

Water Pennywort (Hydrocotyle americana) is such a common emergent that I’ve never stopped to really look at it. This image is perhaps more atmospheric than diagnostic, but I like it.

Classmate Tom took one look at the watermarked plant that so bedeviled me last month (and for which I had no good photo) and said, “Here’s Sweet Cicely.” So we can put a name it, Osmorhiza claytonii.

We watched the usual noisy tussle between smaller birds and a Red-shouldered Hawk. But what I hadn’t seen before was an extended interaction between a male Red-winged Blackbird and a Great Egret that, according to the blackbird, was too much in his space. (This was down at the remnants of beaver dam just below the tower, the place that I remember for a tree that used to be there in which I saw one of my first Orchard Orioles.) The blackbird vocalized and flew at the egret, occasionally striking it. The egret seemed to shrug this off, moving a few strides away, but the blackbird persisted, continuing to harass. The blackbird was so insistent that he coaxed a croak out of the egret. Eventually the egret flew off down Barnyard Run. A few minutes later, we saw a second brief fight farther across the main pond—very difficult to say whether these were the same two birds.

Lots of Great Spangled Fritillaries (Speyeria cybele) flying and feeding on the Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) that is coming into bloom. We saw one of these butterflies puddling on the remains of some goose poop on the boardwalk.

The really interesting find was this jelly mushroom that we came across along the informal trail along Barnyard Run. It keys out to Auricularia auricula, and is apparently edible. An Asian species is called “Cloud Ears;” it is dried and used to flavor soups. Go figure.

la fente

slit, as between the slats of a jalousie

la pente

slope

aplatir

to flatten

étendu (p.p. of étendre)

outstretched, extensive

l’accoudoir (m.)

armrest

…an investigative report in 2011 by ProPublica and PBS NewsHour concluded that the X-ray scanners, then still in use, could cause cancer in 6 to 100 United States airline passengers every year, and that the European Union banned those machines because of health concerns.

(I was unaware of the “cancer cluster” associated with Logan Airport that he mentions, but I’m not surprised.) More to the point, I think they are an egregious misplacement of resources. Like the security bollards that sprang up around federal buildings in the 1990s, body scanners a splendid example of “fighting the last war” thinking.

The way I look at it, if the TSA is going to waste time and money to invade my space, let’s make it personal. Someone has to lay hands on me. Bring on the patdown. Rich’s gambit of trying to pick the line with the metal detector doesn’t work for me.

Contrary to his experience, in the few times that I have “opted out,” as they say, my inspector has always been respectful and prompt. No one has tried to argue me out of my decision. It remains my quiet protest against the forces that would slide us into a state of constant fear.

I found several small patches of Houstonia caerulea. One of the common names for this wildflower is Quaker Ladies, and it’s appropriate, because the blooms come together in one place, but each flower retains its uniqueness.

My attaboy comes from working out this Wild Pink (Silene carolinensis), of which I found only a few instances. The flower is actually a little pinker than in the image: my optics aren’t quite up to the task of rendering this color.

Several mystery plants that I took snapshots of—maybe I can figure out one or two later.

I heard and saw a few American Redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla). Or “yellowstarts,” if one is to judge from the colors of the female.

I saw two new butterflies, a Red-banded Hairstreak (Calycopis cecrops) that classmate Tom found, and several Zabulon Skippers (Poanes zabulon), the first of which I found. The group may also have found a Peck’s Skipper, but I didn’t get a good look for myself.

We walked down to the pond, passing an interesting stand of Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) (probably clonal) and a drift of Forget-Me-Nots (Myosotis sp.). (We didn’t linger to key them out between the native and introduced species.)

At the reconstructed cabin site, there is a garden plot. We found this Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) caterpillar there, munching on some Common Rue (Ruta graveolens). The black-white-yellow coloration suggests a Danaus butterfly like a Monarch, but the swallowtail lacks “horns” and the colors are spots, not stripes.

We saw lots of crane flies (Tipulidae), including one pair intent on making more crane flies. Dr. Huff turned over a far-gone rotting log to reveal an Eastern Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi). We saw lots of recent windthrow: 100-foot tall Tuliptrees snapped off two-thirds of the way up. Dr. Huff suggested an association between waxwings and junipers that I would like to follow up on.

Some nice galls on the leaves of a Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica).

Best bird of the trip was a House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) hanging out around the martin house near the pond. Best plant of the trip was Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium), a Jack-in-the-Pulpit congener found in one clump next to the creek. Its field marks are the long orange extension of the spadix, and the 5 to 15 leaflets.

The opening scene springs from Hirst’s inviting Spooner (Christopher Henley) in for a drink. Twenty-five minutes later, Hirst is falling-down drunk and the scene unspools into slow-motion slapstick. Henley makes the most of Spooner’s weediness, with a sick little smile and a delight in uttering words like periphrastic and sequesteredness as if they were much smuttier than they are.

Rauscher’s second act monologue plays to his strengths: he’s a bemused thug telling the story of how he once gave directions to Foster about how to get to Bolsover Street (in Rauscher’s dialect choice, this sounds more like the so-appropriate Balls-Over Street).

One can read the coda section of the second act as an explanation of this enigmatic sequence of meetings, or as one more mystery to unpick.

• No Man’s Land, by Harold Pinter, directed by Tom Prewitt, WSC Avant Bard, Theatre on the Run, Arlington, Va.