Mother Nature's Classroom

2010-05-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Memorial Day Everyone!

The weather was just spectacular this weekend and the crowds at Horn Pond were just as spectacular. Sunday we had our 5Th Annual Memorial Lantern Walk. We had great crowds and everyone had a wonderful time.

The sunset was intense!

Monday was another beautiful day. But by mid-morning it seemed to be getting extremely hazy. It wasn't the humidity, though. It was smoke from fires, in of all places, Canada! It was blowing in off of the ocean. It made for some interesting photos at Horn Pond. When I took a walk down the Causeway, my across the street neighbors were just taking their kayaks out. A few minutes later, the neighbors next to them came down with their kayaks. By the time they got out to the middle of the Pond, two other kayaks had joined them.

As the afternoon wore on and the sun got lower in the sky, the haze factor was intensified! Got this shot from Arlington Road.

Again the sunset was intense. More than likely it was because of the smoke.

Hope everyone had a terrific Memorial Day Weekend!

Winter Wonderland

2010-02-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

I'm back!!! Both my brother and a good friend warned me about keeping up with a blog! Now I know what they meant! My last post was just before I went on vacation out west last August (in case you would like to see some of the pics go to http://www.innitou-photo.com/ and scroll down a little till you see the link). I am sooooo overdue for a post! But you know how life gets; back from trip with about 4500 photos to edit, family wedding (with more photos to edit), Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. Well, here I am again!

After last week's small but "sticky" snow storm, the sun rose the next day over Horn Pond in a cloudless azure blue sky. I got out early (just after sunrise) for about an hour (still had to go to work) and so I walked the Lagoon. As I wandered along in this winter fairyland I thought to myself it just doesn't get any better than this! So, I present to you here some of what I saw that morning. ENJOY!!!

Some Spectacular Clouds through the lense of my New Camera!!

2009-08-10T13:51:00.001-07:00

I promised to tell you all about my new camera at a later date. Well, I think it's a later date!!! LOL!!!

Since hubby and I are heading out west for vacation this year (15 days at Grand Canyon North Rim, Antelope Canyon in Page, AZ, Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon in UT) I decided I needed a second camera as a backup in case something happened to my original. So I started researching Canon cameras (I'm a Canon person through and through) as my system is Canon and I couldn't afford all new lenses, etc. My original camera is the second generation Canon Rebel. They are now up to the 5th generation. Of course the top of the line Rebel was out of my price range. So I started looking at the D series. Here they were up to the 50D. Also out of my price range. So I checked out the 40D. I thought having a more ruggedly built, more pro camera would be good. So I checked out the 40D at a local cmaeral store. VERY HEAVY CAMERA! Now add on my favorite lens, an 18-300 Image Stabilized lense, and you have one VERY heavy camera!!! To heavy for this old lady with arthritis to hand hold. Sooooo, back to the Rebel. Smaller, lighter and having all the features I really need. Now, which one and how to pay for it.

Well, back about a month ago, I bought a super wide angle lense (the Sigma 10-20mm) from an online outfit called Adorama. Super service, good price, very good site! So I went back to Adorama and typed in the Rebel SXi (one down from the top of the line). Low and behold, they had this camera in a refurbished version!!! So I checked out the review section on refurbished equipment. The only bad review was about the service, not the equipment! So I took the plunge!!!

I ordered the refurbished Canon Rebel XSi (came with the standard kit lense 18-55mm) late on a Tuesday night. It said 7-10 business days. Imagine my surprize and pleasure when it arrived that Friday afternoon!!! Took some macro shots of a couple of my Daylilies that night. Next night, Saturday, I went down the Pond to find one of the most beautiful skies I had seen this year! I spent about 45 minutes shooting the clouds over the Lagoon from the Causeway!

Wow! What a sky!!! Some of these are of the sky, some are of just the sky reflected in the water, and some have both. Look for the shot with the ducks swimming and another with the reflected ducks flying. Look for the canoe in the last shot of the evening!

The next evening, Sunday, the clouds were on the other side of the horizon, over the Pond. Big puffy white clouds, my favorite! I spent another 40 minutes shooting not the sunset, but the reflected colors on the opposite horizon!

Over the weekend I shot tons of photos with all my lenses and the camera worked great with all of them!

Hope you get to enjoy a sunset or two around Horn Pond yourself this summer! There are plenty of benches all around the Pond to sit! So come on down some evening and enjoy the show!!!

Lots of Horn Pond Stuff

2009-07-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot has happened since last you heard from me!!! I bought a new camera, (more about that later), I’ve made two trips up Horn Pond Mountain in a vain search for the Philadelphia Wood Lilies, and I finally saw the baby Wood Ducks!!!

Apparently we had 3 nesting Wood Ducks here at Horn Pond this spring! Male Wood Ducks, (males are called drakes) like their bigger cousins, the Mallards, take off after doing the deed!! Mom is left to raise the ducklings on her own. And these moms are doing a pretty good job! We have a family of 4, a family of 7 and a family of 9! For some reason, the bigger Mallards don’t like the little Wood Ducks. Any pet Psychiatrists out there? All three families were over in the Cattail Marsh, the corner nearest the Red Bridge. I spent a pleasant hour photographing the three broods as they swam back and forth between an open area along the "sewer-line trail", the cattails to the left of the opening and the end of the Marsh covered with duckweed.

Normally, around the 4th of July, a lovely little wildflower called the Philadelphia Wood Lily can be found on Horn Pond Mountain. It is a delicate, upward facing orange to red-orange lily that grows on the side of the mountain under the High-Tension wires. The plants are short, single stems with whorls of leaves and usually a single flower on top. Occasionally there will be two flowers. Don’t know if it is the heavy rains or the heavy plant growth (probably caused by the heavy rains) that is the cause, but there were no lilies to be found this year!! I’m very disappointed! I have been photographing these lovely little flowers for years. This is one of the photos I took in 2007.

There are plenty of other wildflowers in bloom, however, on the mountain and elsewhere around Horn Pond.

Park your car at Ice House Park on Sturgis Street and take a walk across the Causeway on your way to the Mountain. As you walk along the water look for the blue spikes of Pickerel Weed along the Lagoon side of the Causeway. On a hot day you might see dozens of Dragonflies among these native plants. Do you know how to tell the difference between a Dragonfly and a Damselfly? When they lite on a flower the Dragonfly holds its wings out flat, perpendicular to its body. The Damselfly folds its wings back parallel to its body.

Look for the Great Blue Heron as you walk along. He can very often be found somewhere in the Lagoon. This day he was in the corner, just a little ways along the dirt road.

Another day I found this rather oddly patterned Eastern Painted Turtle in the same corner.

And on the Causeway side of this corner is where you find the native pink Swamp Rose. It bloomed rather late this year. It usually is out full by the end of June but it didn’t even start blooming until the middle of July this year.

Some tall flowers you can find at the water’s edge are Water Hemlock, a member of the carrot family, with its Queen Anne’s Lace look-a-like flower-head, and Tall Meadow Rue with its fluffy heads of cream colored, starry flowers.

If you are walking in the morning you might see some of the blue flowers of the Chicory. Its blooms are only open in the morning. Its roots can be dried, roasted and ground and used as a coffee substitute. It has no caffeine and is often added to coffee to cut down on the caffeine content.

Also along the Causeway on the Lagoon side, look for Purple Milkweed. Unlike the Common Milkweed, these flowers are an intense purple-pink and bloom a little later than Common Milkweed.

Walk straight past Lions Park on the back road to the Mountain. The Golf course will be on your right. Just after the golf course, look for tiny pink flowers in the grass. These are Deptford Pinks, a Dianthus of European origin. The flowers are tiny, only about ½" across, but easy to spot as they are bright hot pink!

I like to climb up the front of the Mountain under the High Tension wires, and come down the old access road. I just find it easier going up on the loose rubble of the trail then coming down on loose rubble. Just personnel preference! It is under these wires, out in the full sun, that the Philadelphia Wood Lily usually grows. But there are other flowers here to look at! Two woody-stemmed plants that grow along this trail are Meadowsweet and Steeplebush. These two members of the Rose family are both native wildflowers and both can be found in many places on Horn Pond Mountain. Meadowsweet can be white or pale pink and Steeplebush is a deep pink.

Other wildflowers I found on this side of the mountain are the mid-western Black-eyed Susans, the fuzzy pale pink Eurasian import Rabbit-Foot Clover, the native bright pink Field Milkwort, the native Spreading Dogbane with its little pink bell-shaped flowers, the native yellow Wild Indigo and surprisingly, out in the sun, the little native Woodland Sunflower.

Check out the great view of Horn Pond when you get to the top!

With all the rain we have had, the old reservoir has quite a bit of water in it. Cattails grow here and Dragonflies are plentiful.

As you come down the other side on the old access road you will see different flowers in the woods. The woods around Horn Pond are Dry Oak-Hickory woods. The native Spotted Wintergreen can be found in these woods as well as the woods to the North of the Lagoon. Indian Pipes are also native but they have no chlorophyll so must get their nutrients from organic matter in the soil. Back out in the sun at the bottom of the mountain I ran into a tiny little Cabbage White butterfly on some Spotted Knapweed, both alien species!

As I walked by the Cove, one of our three Mute Swan families was right on the shore. Two of the four Cygnets in this family are white and have been since they hatched. These are "sports", or genetic mutations, and are usually female.

I hope you are all getting out and enjoying Horn Pond in between all the rain we have been having! It is truly a wonderful place to live!

Stay tuned for a blog about my new camera and some fabulous shots, taken at Horn Pond, of course!!!

Horn Pond has gone to the Birds!

2009-06-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

Haven’t posted in a while, been very busy. So, I thought I would do something on all the waterfowl at Horn Pond. We certainly have plenty!

The biggest water birds we have are of course, the Mute Swans! We had four mated pair this year but I can only find two pair left with families. One hangs out in the Lagoon and they are down to four Cygnets. When they were still very little (as my daughters put it, "fuzzy bathtub toy" stage) they would hop up on mom’s back.

Often in the late afternoon/early evening they come up at an opening on the Lagoon side and preen themselves (they imitate Mom very well) and the babies get some shuteye!!! They seem to like cuddling with each other.

One day I found them in the closest corner of the Lagoon to the Water Street entrance, all slurping up Duck Weed. So I guess the ducks aren’t the only ones that like this little water plant! Dad is very protective, still. They will chase other swans and the geese if they get to close. I noticed that the male tends to stay in the water a lot when the female and the cygnets are up on land preening. And when they are on the land they don’t like dogs very much!

The pair over in the Sandpit only has one cygnet remaining. And he’s getting pretty big! This family can be very hard to spot as there are lots of hiding places in the flooded area next to Fowle Brook. Lots of dead trees and clumps of weeds and Loosestrife as well as some large boulders that block the view.

Canada Geese are very prevalent at Horn Pond. And most pairs seem to have lots of babies. Geese mate for life and about the only way you can tell the goose from the gander is size; she is smaller. And, when they are swimming together as a family, the gander is out front and the goose brings up the rear. Canada Goslings seem to have more yellow on them when they are very little as compared with Mallard Ducks. But it doesn’t seem to take long before they start getting their coloration.

Most of the ducks we have here are Mallards. For those of you that don’t know, Mallards mate and then the male takes off, leaving the female to sit on the nest and to raise and protect the ducklings. Because of this trait, the female Mallard is very drab in comparison to the male. It helps her blend in to her surroundings as she sits on her nest. She does have some blue wing patches, though.

The Mallard ducklings are mostly brown with yellow on their heads.

They are very small when first hatched but very quick on the water. They bounce around like little corks sometimes!

We also have a pair of Wood Ducks that mated and had babies. I have not seen them, but I talked with a couple of different people who had.

If you happened to walk down Arlington Road on Saturday, you might have seen a very unusual sight! We had a pair of Muscovy Ducks sitting on a log along the shoreline a little ways past the Clapp School.

All our babies are growing rapidly. Come on down and see for yourself!!!

Blooms, blooms, blooms!

2009-06-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

Flowers, flowers everywhere! The woods, fields, shores and water are filled with blooms! The end of May into June is colorful indeed!

If you walk around the Lagoon the shoreline has several clumps of the bright Yellow Water Iris. It seems to be a very good year for this plant. Tons of blooms on almost every clump I have come across in the Lagoon, in the Pond, along Fowle Brook and out in the Cattail Marsh. Further out in the water of the Lagoon and near the shore on the Pond you will see the Yellow Pond Lily starting to bloom. This is the only water lily we have here at the Pond. It stays in a cup shape so doesn't look like a typical "water lily".

As you come around the corner into the open look for the Bristle Locust shrubs with their chains of pink, pea-like flowers on the right as you walk. The whole shrub is covered in soft red hair-like bristles, hense the name. Some of the flowers have started to pod up. They form tiny black seeds in a pod (like green peas) also covered with red bristles. A relative of this shrub, the Black Locust, which is a tree, has fragrant chains of white flowers and can be found in many spots around the Pond; just look up!!!

If you walk in the morning look for the tall yellow clusters of a dandalion relative called King Devil Hawkweed. A tall, hairy stem rises out of a whorl of slender, hairy leaves with a cluster of small dandalion-like flowers that are only open in the morning and early afternoon. This trait is called "photonasty".

Some other yellow dandalion relatives you might see as you walk around the Lagoon in May/June are Mouse-ear Hawkweed which has a single flower on a shorter stem than the King Devil Hawkweed and Dwarf Dandalion, another single flowered, short stemed yellow flower with a whorl of smooth, toothed leaves similar to the Common Dandalion.

When you get to the Red Bridge take a detour up into the woods to the right. Before you start up the hill look for the Pink Lady Slippers just in off the trail. They should still be blooming for another week or so as long as it doesn't get really hot.

As you walk uphill look on the left just below a rocky ledge for a couple of not so common flowers. The bright yellow one is Golden Ragwort. This cluster of small, yellow daisy-like flowers stands 1-2 feet. Nearby look for the white to pale pink Four-leaved Milkweed. This Milkweed has smooth leaves and a loose cluster of flowers. It is only found here and up on Horn Pond Mountain.

Continue along the trail as it climbs. If you go to the left up by the Cedar trees look for the Wild Pink in the grass. If you go to the right along the top of the hill look for the delicate soft yellow of Frostweed in the grass.

Come back down to the trail that runs from the Red Bridge to the Community Gardens. As you head back to the bridge, look for an opening to the Marsh with a lot of Birch trees. Here there is a clump of the Slender Blue Flag Iris. Unlike the Yellow Iris, which is an alien, the Blue Flag is a Native wildflower.

Another walk on another day, or the same day if you are really energetic, would be to head for the Mountain. As you walk along the Causeway, notice all the clovers in the grass. As well as White Clover and Alsike Clover, we have a lot of Red Clover. This is the one that stands out more because it is bright pink and larger than the others. All three of these clovers are alien, not native.

Go past Lions Park straight up past the golf course. Along here in the woods to the right, just after the golf course, you will find a large stand of the False Solomon's Seal. This plant has a similar arrangement of leaves but unlike the true Solomon's Seal's hanging double bell-like flowers, this plant's flower is an airy cluster of multiple flowers. In the fall, this plant has clusters of red berries that hang down with the weight of them.

I like to walk up the Mountain under the High Tension wires. Along this trail I found several clumps of the very delicate Wild Geranium. The flowers run from light lavendar to purple to pinkish purple in color.

Don't forget to turn around and enjoy the lovely view of the Pond on your way to the top. As you come across the top watch for two tiny little flowers. The short yellow one in the grass is called Stargrass. It is a member of the Daffodil family. Look closely along the dirt road for the pale, inconspicuous Blue Toadflax. The tiny flowers on thin foot tall stems are easily missed.

Along the fence to the old Resevoir look for brambles. These thorny plants are found just about everywhere around Horn Pond. We have blackberries, black raspberries, raspberries, wild strawberries, etc. These plants are quite numerous and difficult to identify. But they will taste good later on in the season!!!

When you get to the other side of the mountain don't for get to check out the terrific view of the Boston Skyline!

As you walk down the old access road, look for a shrub in bloom right now called Maple-leaved Viburnum. The fuzzy leaves turn a lovely shade of purple in the autumn.

Well, we've walked enough for one day! Get out and enjoy the kalidoscope of colors to be found now at Horn Pond.

Finally, Wood Ducks

2009-05-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well, after being told by several people over the course of several years that they saw Wood Ducks over in the Cattail Marsh, but never having seen them myself, I finally got to see a pair! And actually, I saw TWO pair!!! The first pair was in Fowle Brook a little way upstream from the Red Bridge. The second pair, whose photos are here, was in the shallow area of the Cattail Marsh that runs along side the dirt road (known to locals as the Sewer Line Trail). A most unusual and colorful pair. The male has a red eye ring and the female has a white eye ring as well as slightly fewer colors.

In the same area as the Wood Ducks I saw the Mute Swan pair from the Cattail Marsh with only one Cygnet left of the two that hatched. There are a lot of snapping turtles in the Cattail Marsh and also in the swampy area of the Sandpit. I heard from a fellow walker that the Sandpit pair has only two out of six Cygnets remaining.

The Lagoon pair are showing off their brood of NINE Cygnets!!! Maybe, since the Lagoon is more open and somewhat deeper, they won't loose as many to the snappers!

I have not seen them yet, myself, but I also was told that the Pond pair that has the nest behind Ice House Park had two hatch out. She is keeping them well hidden, though.

If it is sunny when you walk, look for the Eastern Painted or Sun Turtles on many floating logs in the Lagoon or any of the smaller ponds. A good place to see them is the first opening along the dirt road around the Lagoon. Right there in the corner you can usually see several on floating logs.

Further along, just after the first bend in the road, look at the water's edge for a clump of the beautiful Yellow Water Iris.

Just before the Red Bridge, over in the woods to the right, our beautiful Pink Lady Slipper or Moccasin Flower is beginning to bloom. There doesn't seem to be as many of them this year as in years past. They are very fussy and have very particular growing needs.

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/pink_ladys_slipper.htm

After you come across the Red Bridge, a little further along the dirt road as it rounds the bend, you will see a trail marker and a trail that leads into the Sandpit on your right. Just to the left of this trail is another trail that leads up hill. Between these two trails you can find the only herbaceous member of the Dogwood Family called Bunchberry. The white "petals" are actually bracts which surround a cluster of tiny yellow-green "flowers"!

In the woods to the right of the dirt road as you come along here, and also on the left as you get closer to the Parkway, you might see Wild Sarsaparilla. The globe of tiny white to greenish flowers are on a separate stalk from the leaves.

In several places around the Horn Pond Conservation Area you will find a large shrub in bloom right now. You can smell it before you see it. The leaves have a whiteish bloom and the flowers are tiny trumphets in large clusters. It has a very heady, rather sweet fragerance. It is one of many alien plants in this area that are very invasive and is called Russian Olive.

Soon the weather will be warming. Watch for more babies on the water; Ducklings and Goselings as well as the Cygnets.

Come down to our beautiful Pond for a relaxing or invigorating walk or even a picnic sometime over the upcoming Holiday weekend!

Babies

2009-05-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the first of our Mute Swan clutches have hatched. In fact, as of Monday, May 4th, two clutches had hatched. The pair in the Sandpit have SIX Cygnets! The pair nesting in the Cattail Marsh have two Cygnets. I couldn't see the six. Mom was back on the nest with them all under her wing. I could see her wing in the air like she was pulling something in towards her. The pair from the Cattail Marsh was in Fowle Brook feeding. The two adults would stomp the mud near the opposite shore from where I was standing and then they would all feed. Then the adults would stomp the mud again. Fascinating to watch.

And swans are not the only babies on the water! I met a couple that said they saw a big clutch of Ducklings. Soon there will be more Ducklings, Goslings and maybe even some more Cygnets since we have two more nests!!!

The wild flowers up in the woods are in full swing! One of my favorites, New England Wild Columbine, is blooming on every rocky outcrop on the hillside to the North of the Red Bridge and also up on Horn Pond Mountain.

Other flowers that can be found in most woods around Horn Pond are Quaker Ladies or Bluets, (most often white in this area with only a touch of blue) ..........

and several types of violets! My favorite is the Bird-foot Violet with its delicate ferny leaves. It can be found in many places along the trail above Lagoon to the South. Also along here and in the reclaimed Sandpit you can find clumps of the Northern Downey Violet with its fuzzy leaves.

And everywhere the Wild Lily of the Valley carpets the ground as the tiny spikes of flowers start showing among its oval shaped leaves.

This is also the time for the blueberries to flower. This year it looks like we will have a bumper crop of the flavorful wild blueberries. Everywhere I went in the woods and up on the mountain, the bushes were heavy with the tiny bell-like flowers.

A walk most anywhere around Horn Pond now will offer the lovely fragrance of the many wild flowering apples.

This past Saruday, May 2nd, was Woburn's 47th Annual Conservation Day. The main thrust of the day was the installation of the remaining trail marking posts. Next will be the map and brochure!!! After lunch representatives of the EPA, the DEP and the MWRA gave a presentation and announced the Mystic River Watershed's report card which was up from a D to a C-.

Every day is different at Horn Pond. Things are happening fast now so come on down! You don't want to miss a thing!!!

Horn Pond Happenings

2009-04-18T18:03:00.000-07:00

Well, we had our first brush fire at Horn Pond. On Wednesday, April 8th, I looked out my front window to see smoke billowing up from the woods on the back side of the Lagoon. After calling the Fire Department (who arrived within minutes), I grabbed my camera and took a walk over. Luckily the previous week had brought lots of rain, so only the top layer of leaf litter that had dried out caught fire. There were many small fires up the hill and along the top as if someone had just tossed lit matches as they walked the trails. It didn't take long for our firefighters to put all the little blazes out.

One nice afternoon as I was walking along the sewer line trail, I came across a couple of Kayakers. They had come up Fowle Brook then gone across to the Marsh. On their way back the first fellow got his kayak back into Fowle Brook, but the male Mute Swan from the pair with a nest near by, wouldn't let the second fellow back into the brook! He chatted with me while we waited for the Swan to loose interest (which he did) and then the second fellow quickly got his kayak back into Fowle Brook and they continued down stream and out into the Lagoon.

We have four nesting pair of Mute Swans at Horn Pond this year! The original pair nesting in the cattails in the middle of the Marsh across from the Community Gardens, the second pair over in the swampy part of the large pond in the reclaimed sand pit, a pair in the Pond, nesting in the marsh at the mouth of Towne Meadow Brook at Ice House Park, and number four in the back of the Lagoon. This is the pair I had the opportunity to watch one afternoon while they decided to work on their nest. The female sat on the nest and pulled small feathers from her breast to add to the nest. The male sat beside the nest reaching out for pieces of grass which he pulled and passed back to the female.

Love is in the air for more then just Swans. A walk in the woods is far from quiet these days as numerous birds sing to attract a mate. While walking in the woods I heard the most lovely song and spotted a delightful little yellow bird which turned out to be the Palm Warbler.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Palm_Warbler/id

I had a lovely surprise on one of my walks this past week. As I walked the sewer line trail I spotted a Great Blue Heron flying upstream on Fowle Brook. He lighted in a tree across the brook almost in front of me! The bird stood on a branch and tugged and pulled at some small branches to no avail. When they wouldn't detach themselves, the Heron took off and landed in another nearby tree. As I followed with my camera, I realized that there was another Heron in the tree that it flew to. The second Heron was in breeding plumage and I realized I was looking at a pair! Wouldn't it be terrific if they nested here at Horn Pond?

The first wildflowers are in bloom up on the same hill where I found the Palm Warblers. Field Pussytoes, Early Buttercups and Early Saxifrage can be found in rock crevices and in the grass.

I had a very pleasant surprise on Friday when I walked out through the Sandpit. As I neared the marshy area where the Swans are nesting, a Great Egret flew in!

If you enjoy walking Horn Pond, come join us on May 2nd for Woburn's 37th Annual Conservation Day! Spend at least 2 hours with us and earn this year's Conservation Day Patch! Spend the whole day (from 9:00am till 1:00pm) and stay for a Volunteers Cookout. For more information about the day see http://cityofwoburn.com/index.aspx?nid=834

This coming Saturday, April 25th, Woburn will celebrate Earth Day at the Woburn Mall! Many groups will be there, including WREN, SCI (Social Capital Inc.), the Woburn Historical Society, the Living History Guild, Woburn Green Energy, TLC Recycles, Mary Cummings Park, Woburn Public Library, Woburn Police (SRO), Marie Coady Book Signing and many, many more including yours truly, Innitou Photo!!!! If you are at the Mall stop by and say hi and let me know how you like this blog!!!

Happy walking!!!

2009-03-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s official. Spring is really here!!! The Spring Peepers are peeping!!! I heard them for the first time on Friday early evening. I had walked out behind the Lagoon and up into the woods and as I was sitting very still trying to see a bird the I could only hear, I heard the distinct sound of the peepers! Such a welcome sound, a sure indicator of Spring.
http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/northern_spring_peeper.html

The bird, by the way, was the Northern Flicker.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Northern_Flicker.html#sound

After I came down off of the hill, I headed for the Cattail Marsh across from the Community Gardens. I was looking for the Green Winged Teal that my neighbor saw and photographer so nicely last week. Didn’t find the Teals, but I did find two other new ducks that some friendly passing birders helped me identify. First, I saw a small flock that the birders told me were Ring-necked Ducks, a medium sized diving duck only found in this area during its migration. The ring around its neck is very faint, however, the ring around its beak is very prominent!
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ring-necked_Duck.html

Then I saw a single duck by itself, which they identified as an American Widgeon. This duck is a dabbling duck and eats vegetation off of the bottom. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/American_Wigeon.html

All in all, a lovely early spring afternoon walk!!! I hope you, also, were able to get out and enjoy the lovely weather we had Friday and Saturday!

2009-03-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Walked the Pond today. The huge flock of Mergansers that my neighbor saw is still on the Pond. Last weeks pics were of Hooded Mergansers that I saw on the Lagoon. I mistakenly thought the large flock were also Hooded Mergansers. Once I actually saw them I realized they were not the Hooded but the Common Mergansers. Talked to a gentleman sitting on a bench on the Causeway with binoculars. He said he had counted 130+ birds! Wow!!! Here is a shot of part of the flock and a pair. The one with the green head is the male and the female has the red head.

While I was walking I also saw my first American Coot of the season.

And also my first Cormorant of the season.

Hope you all had a chance to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather today!!!

2009-03-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

Well, Spring is finally here. Or so the calendar says! Spring comes more slowly to the natural world than it does to our gardens. The crocus and snowdrops are all ready blooming in our gardens, but out around Horn Pond you have to look closely for signs of the coming season.

Take a walk out back around the Lagoon then out towards the Community Gardens. There is a Cattail Marsh directly across from the Gardens where you will hear, and if you are lucky see, one of our feathered harbingers of Spring, the Red-winged Blackbird. Listen to his call

http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=25

and see what he looks like

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/red-winged_blackbird.htm

Along the water's edge look for the new green shoots of the Yellow Water Iris and Common Cattails. And anywhere along the trails you might surprise our favorite spring bird, the American Robin.

Look for Pussy Willows in the woods.

Along the edge of a stream you might see the first signs of skunk cabbage.

Right now if you walk the Pond you might spot a very different duck that is not usually found at Horn Pond, the Hooded Merganser. This fish eating duck dives for it's food in shallow wooded ponds. It also eats aquatic insects and crustaceans. A large flock of approx. 75 was spotted on Horn Pond on Saturday, 3/21.

Changes will happen fast from now on. Soon the ducks, geese and swans will be paring off and building nests. And it won't be long before the trees will leaf out, the wildflowers will be blooming and baby birds will be seen on the water.