Honey, I'm home! Just got back from a week-long vacation in Oregon. I vacationed on my sister and brother-in-law's farm, which always entails doing a little farm work, as well as playing around.
When I got home I discovered that all of the baby swallows in both of our nests had fledged while I was gone. I thought they would, but I still miss them. I've been keeping an eye on them for so long now that it's become part of my routine. I took this photo of a violet-green swallow leaving the birdhouse on my sister's farm. This is evidence of the second swallow nest in that bird house this year. It seems to have everything a swallow looks for in a home. They like it so much that they've developed a time-share program for it. Look at what a tight fit that hole is. That's how accurately these little avian jet-fighters can fly.
The little froglets are starting to leave Marlake. This beauty was absolutely stunning, but no matter how hard I tried, or how many photos I took, I could not capture it's color. The frog in this photo pales against reality. The entire center of this frog's back was an amazing, gleaming, metallic copper, and the skin to either side was almost the color of a lime. Finding this tiny froglet was like finding a living jewel sitting on top of a leaf It took my breath away.
This is how tiny they are. That's my thumb in the photo and I have very small hands.
Wildflowers are in bloom and a variety of insects are taking advantage of the sweet nectar they produce, cross-pollinating them in the process. There are several varieties of thistles in the park, but these big Scottish thistles are my favorite.
If you look at this picture and the one above, you might come to the conclusion that big bees visit big blossoms and small bees visit small blossoms, but that's not true. I got a real kick out of watching the bees at my sister's house. She has some plants called Angel's Fishing Rods, which have bell-shaped blooms. The bees crawl entirely inside of these bells in order to get to the nectar. If you examine the blossoms closely, you'll see that each one appears to have a psedo-stamen hanging outside of the bell with what looks like a single drop of nectar on it. This must be the bait that lures the bee into the bell.
This was the prettiest stem of hardhack that I think I've ever seen, so I couldn't resist photographing it. The actual color was much deeper and richer than the color in this photograph.
Dylan Mendenhall, from EarthCorps, found the northwestern thatching ant nest. I found the plants that the thatching ants were using to farm their aphids this year, but hadn't been able to locate the nest. Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the matter may be, the nest was located very close to the area where the work party was weeding.
This is only a very small number of the people who turned out for today's work party. These ladies and gentlemen, along with their fellow co-workers, did an outstanding job of removing weeds and invasive vegetation from one of our habitat restoration sites in the park. This is the next generation of environmentalists in the making. As an elderly person, at the end of her career, I envy them their youth, energy, entusiasm, and the hope they bring to the world. They make my heart sing!
The salal berries are getting ripe. Unfortunately, most of the ripe ones are too far away from the edge of the boardwalk for me to reach. They're teasing me. They know I want them, but I can't reach them. And, they know that I won't leave the trail to get them, because that sets a bad example for others. Not fair, Mother Nature!
Pacific trailing blackberries are also starting to ripen. These berries ripen much earlier than the invasive Himalayan blackberries. The Himalayans are still transforming from blossoms into hard green rocks.
This is purple loosestrife. This is an Class C invasive that we'd like very much to get rid of. It's currently in bloom at Brooklake. We've been trying to get rid of it for years, but every time we think we've eradicated it, it blooms again.
This is fireweed. We like fireweed. The bees also like fireweed and they make awesome honey out of it. You can find fireweed growing in the field between the old cabins and the pipe house. Fireweed looks very similar to purple loosestrife, but if you look carefully, you can tell the difference. So, what makes an invasive an invasive and why is that bad? Native plants, as native anything, have native predators to keep it under control. Invasive plants, as invasive anything, have no predators to keep them under control, so tend to take over, killing all of the native things in it's way. English ivy climbs to the top of thirty-foot trees, depriving the trees of the water and nutrients they need to survive, thereby killing the trees. Bullfrogs are many times larger and more aggressive than native frogs, so eat all of the little native frogs, wiping out entire species of frog. Everything has it's proper place. Purple loosestrife, English ivy, Himalayan blackberries, bullfrogs, and other invasives, do not belong in the park.
And now to the really nasty stuff. I hate to mention it here, but Comcast only allows me to post one photograph per email, so the best way to send photos to the Park's Department and EarthCorps is through this blog. Someone stole the little zip-lock bag of blog-from-the-bog cards that I had taped to the Information kiosk. I have replaced it with another bag, but neither the City, nor EarthCorps, provides me with business cards, so this comes out of my own pocket. I found some of my cards scattered willy-nilly along the trail. One has to wonder why? This tree is growing to the right of the Brooklake viewing platform, when facing the lake. Someone has unloaded a wad of buckshot into the tree. Why someone would shoot a tree is beyond me. There's also a cigarette butt floating in the tiny bit of exposed water at the Deep Sinks. Cigarette butts contain all kinds of nasty chemicals that will poison our wildlife. Why would anyone be so careless? It's beyond me. On one end of the park, young men and women have come from all over the world and are working hard to restore the habitat in our park; while, at the other end, careless people are carving graffiti into our trees, filling trees with buckshot, and throwing their trash into the wetland without thought. A battle is taking place within this tiny park. Who's going to win, and what does that say about us as people?
Now, to the Park Department's part. Once again, the Exit sign has gone missing where the boardwalk loop forks. In the old days, when the signage was different, vandals would deliberately turn the Exit signs around to face the wrong direction. When that happened, it wasn't rare for me to run into frantic visitors on the trail who had made two or more circuits of the loop and couldn't find their way out. The new signs are much sturdier than the old signs and are footed much differently, so it takes a whole lot more effort to remove a sign now than it used to. Still, this is the second time that I know of that the Exit sign has disappeared completely, being replaced by a handwritten sign tacked to a tree.
That's not all, though. The sign on the Brooklake viewing platform is missing.
The sign between the Barker Cabin and the sani-can has gone missing.
The sign at the Brooklake viewing platform adjacent to the tree full of buckshot has gone missing. What's with all of the missing signs? Really, I can't imagine anyone with so little self-esteem that they feel they have the right to carve their graffiti into everything and throw their trash everywhere would have any interest what-so-ever in obtaining, and keeping, a sign that actually contains educational information. It doesn't seem to fit in the same category as stealing a Stop sign or street sign. It's a mystery to me.
Okay, nuff said. Don't want to leave everyone on such a sour note, although this could be considered very sour by a lot of gardeners, but I find it fascinating. Have you ever taken the time to sit down and watch a garden slug eat a leaf? It's really rather fascinating. Slugs don't have teeth like we do. They actually have something that resembles a buzzsaw more than teeth. This little slug was so busy eating these leaves that it wasn't at all concerned by my presence, so I settled down to watch and found the whole process quite interesting. The next time you find yourself in the right place, at the right time, and have no other place to be at the moment, I highly recommend it.
The wetland was very peculiar today. After months of birdsong and mating activities, the wetland seemed absolutely silent, and the silence was a bit unsettling. I didn't see any frogs at the Deep Sinks, nor at any other place where I could normally spot a frog. I didn't see any snakes. None of the birds were singing. It was actually kind of spooky. Just when I started wondering why everything was in hiding, and if I'd see anything at all, I turned around and spotted the biggest red-legged frog that I've ever seen in my life. This fellow was nothing short of huge, at least as far as red-legged frogs go. My goodness! He, or she, as the matter may be, must be the granddaddy of them all. What a treat!
Teri I. Lenfest
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