Walks with Ruta

     Monitoring season is over.  In it's place, Ruta and I take leisurely walks over the same paths.

It is interesting to see the woods and fields with bare trunks and dried seedpods and stiff grassy stalks.  The topography is revealed at this time of year and reminds us of the conditions each species requires.

  Hudson is a welcome companion.  His maturity complements Ruta's need and my preference to slowly amble along, stopping periodically to poke at leafy rosettes and debate which flower will emerge next spring.

  A gloomy rain prevents us from going out today, but at the end of last week's walk we came upon one of the few fall blooming trees - the lovely Witch hazel - cheering up the typically cloudy fall day.

Just Can't Get Enough

… beautiful sunrises 

October 30

This morning

Late Bloomers

     Friday we came upon this still blooming Soapwort Gentian while collecting seeds at Campbell Prairie.  It was nestled in amongst thick dried grasses and so survived our first hard frost.  Most flowers have long since gone to seed - even the asters.

     This prompted me to look for lingering blooms in my garden.

Johnny Jump Up

Lavender

cultivated Turtle Head

Black-eyed Susan

While out taking these photos today I ran into a bee - taking advantage of the nectar remaining.

Wooly Bear

     It's wooly bear time.  

I don't remember seeing any last fall, but there have been several crawling around the garden the past few weeks.

I'm usually hesitant to pick up insects, but there is something irresistible about these furry guys.  Their tiny feet tickle.  They roll into nice little balls. 

     Folklore posits the severity of the coming winter can be predicted by the length of the caterpillar's light brown middle; the longer the middle, the milder the winter.  

I think that's good news for us this year.

Honorary Monitor

This is Cedar, Denise's little 3 month old Brittany Spaniel.  Circumstances necessitated his accompanying us on our monitoring excursion Friday.  

He should make a good field dog.  He was happy to sniff and explore and didn't mind the rain or mud in the least.

It took the former law enforcement official amongst us nerds to recognize this marijuana plant.  

It is amazing that with all the ground we've covered over the years, especially in the new corridor sites, we have not run into this plant before.  

It is a little late in the season for Cardinal flower to bloom, but there were several doing just that.  They were in shade or in areas mowed several weeks ago.

 

Fringed Gentian

     We went to one of the older corridor sites yesterday to monitor the Fringed Gentian, one of my favorite wildflowers.  The site is named the Jordan Tract, but we re-named it Gentian Meadow about eight years ago after counting well over a hundred plants.

This year we found only ten.  

Buckthorn has long since invaded this wet meadow and the park system began fighting back this past spring with close mowing.  We wondered if this might have been the reason for the drop in numbers, but in researching this post I discovered a reliable site stating that populations of this biennial are erratic.

Apparently, I am not the only one who looks(ed) forward to this beautiful flower each fall.

While the cat is away....

...the hummingbirds will eat grape jelly?

The Orioles and Catbirds have taken off for warmer climes, but I figured it couldn't hurt to put out a little grape jelly each day for a while - just to make sure there aren't any stragglers.  

The hummers often fly around the jelly feeder - nothing new.  I had always assumed they were attracted to the insects.  

Earlier this week, however, I saw one perch and eat the jelly.  This happened several days in a row.  I don't know if it was the same bird, of course, but it was always a female.  So far, I've only seen one mention of this on the Internet.  That comment stated the concentration of sugar in grape jelly (23%) is quite close to that of the nectar we all make for our hummingbird feeders (25%).

Who knew?