Birthday and Christmas Nature Books

 

My friends have come through again. I got the Suburban Safari book for my birthday and the Sibley book for Christmas. I rarely have time to read, and only do so during school vacations, so the timing is awesome as are the books!

First day for ice skating on Caesar Pond

 Ugh... It is too slippery and rough for me to get over to Caesar Pond, but the ice looks stunning! Smooth as can be. Quite a few ice skaters on it.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

I love Red-bellied Woodpeckers. Often, my view of them does not reveal the red belly, but here you can see it.

I love the bars on his wings and his bright red head! Such a beautifully colored bird. If you put out suet feeders, you will get woodpeckers.

The Bluebirds of Happiness

Male Bluebird

We had a flock of Eastern Bluebirds visit our yard today. It was such a thrill!

A female bluebird checks out the suet feeder. She is probably looking for mealworms!

Here it is mid-December and the Bluebirds are still here! 

Bluebirds generally forage on the ground eating insects. But, in winter they will also eat dogwood berries, sumac, juniper berries, and much more.

I looked in my "Sibley Guide to Birds" book and saw that Bluebirds usually just spend the summer breeding season with us and migrate south afterward. But, I just looked at the publishing date on my book, and it is the year 2000. 

Here is an updated range map from eBird. Global warming has changed the migratory patterns of lots of birds, and I see that it has affected Bluebirds as well. They now live in southern Maine all year round.

New Maine Nature 2022 Calendar

I just created this new calendar for 2022. Fun!

A Good Old Fashioned Nor'easter

 Wow! We sure got a good dose of rain along with 10 mph-20 mph winds. We measured the rainfall at 3.5" and our neighbors measured it at 4.25". They are probably correct. Either way, we got a boat load of rain!

We took a drive and then a walk in the woods. First, we checked out the Dead River which seems to have become the "Un" Dead River, on this Halloween Day, as it has risen quite a bit from the storm water and has a bit of a current today!

Luckily, there are two huge culverts that keep the road from flooding.

Then, we went to one of our favorite hiking areas on Hix Small Road. When we get rain like this, the road tends to wash away, or at least it used to before our town did a proper job of rebuilding the road across the East Cathance Stream. As you can see, the stream rose up to road level and flowed over it.

Here is the East Cathance Stream as it has overflowed its banks. This is normally just a trickle. Yowzer!

I crossed through the water on the trail and looked back at the stream on both sides of the road.

Here you can see one of the culverts better. It is too small for the volume of water that has to move through it. There is a second small culvert closer to me that you can see water shooting out of as well. We really need a bigger one like those on Dead River Rd.

Then, we went visited Wagg Road to see the newish pond that has formed since one of the culverts has been clogged with debris. Wow! This used to be just a small bog.

Here is the other side of Wagg Road where there is just a trickle of water flowing into it. The colors are so pretty!

When we arrived home, I got to wade through the water to get to the edge of Caesar Pond. Yes, I could have walked around it, but what is the fun of that? And, there are too many ticks in the weeds right now. I was also happy to see that my boat made it through the storm okay.

The pond was very high. If it wasn't so windy I could have gone out in my boat, but I can't go up against 11mph winds.

And here is a view looking to the north. So pretty...sigh...

All in all, we had a fabulous day as evidenced by my wet trousers! I had to pour water out of my hiking boots and wring the water out of my socks. I love walking through puddles and slogging around in the woods! I can't think of anything more enjoyable!

First below freezing temp. of the season

 WOW! It feels so crisp and cold this morning. I'm glad I picked all of the tomatoes earlier this week as autumn is in full swing!

The Mighty Bolete...mushroom, that is...

 Oh my, everywhere we look we see mushrooms! It has been so rainy that we really are reminded of the fact that the mycelia of mushrooms (fine threads that result from the spores and give rise to the vegetative mushroom bodies) are interlaced in the soil beneath our feet, on tree trunks, tree roots, and rotten trees.

Orange Birch Bolete (Leccinum versipelle)

Of the many species we have seen, the bolete mushrooms have been quite eye-catching due to their size and sometimes strangeness of structure! I think that his is an Orange Birch Bolete (Leccinum versipelle) that was growing near the side of Hix Small Cemetery Road.

Orange Birch Bolete (Leccinum versipelle)

Isn't it funky! Bolete mushrooms cannot survive without a host tree like oak, aspen, birch, and some with pine and fir. You many not know what tree it is associated with because they may be growing off the roots of the tree.

And, here is a less mature specimen we found growing further down the road, deeper into the forest. As you can see, the white flesh of the stem blackens when bruised.

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But wait, there's more! I thinking that this was Xerocomellus chrysenteron (formerly known as Boletus chrysenteron), but I cannot be sure. There are so many species that are so similar.

I do see purple tinging the edge of the cap a bit better in this other view, depending on the lighting. It is an indicator of this species of mushroom.

Bolete mushrooms have tubes and pores instead of gills through which the spores are released. This mature bolete seems to have some purple around the edges.

You can see that the flesh of the cap is yellow where damaged. This is consistent with a description of the Xerocomellus chrysenteron, but I cannot confirm this as I did not do all the different tests and observations necessary to determine it.

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Suillus americanus aka Chicken Fat Mushroom!

This yellow mushroom caught my eye when visiting the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in September. The slimy looking yellow cap with bits of orange veil attached to the cap edge gives it the common name of Chicken Fat mushroom. Its scientific name is Suillus americanus. It has a yellow stem, and has pores on the underside of the cap that release spores just like any bolete mushroom. These mushrooms grow in a mycorrhizal association with Eastern White Pine trees. NOTE: Some people experience contact dermatitis after touching these shrooms.

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Amanita mushrooms abound in the woods

 

I think that this is Amanita muscaria, but I am not certain. We found so many of them in the woods that I was able to photograph them in all stages of growth.

Amanita muscaria are poisonous and hallucinogenic mushrooms. The cap can be yellow, orange, or red. These warts are lightly yellowish to white. One of the characteristics are the concentric rings above the bulb. These rings are the remains of the volva (a sort of veil that surrounds the young mushroom.)

You will also notice that the stalk looks rather hairy. The warts on the cap are also left over pieces of the universal veil that stay attached to Amanita mushrooms.

Another characteristic of Amanita muscaria is the orange color in the center of the cap as well as the bulbous shape of the stalk base.

As they get older, the cap starts to flatten out and the warts seem to get a bit worn away.

The underside of the cap has gills that are quite close together and are filled with white spores. By the way, I measured the cap and it was about 5.5" in diameter while the stem was about 5.5" long.

Do you love chocolate? Me too... Especially Chocolate Milky Mushrooms!

This is a Chocolate Milky Mushroom (Lacterius lignyotus) that is in the milk cap genus of mushrooms. They contain latex (milky material) that seeps from the shroom when cut. The latex is different colors, and can turn different colors when exposed to air, depending on the species. It is also called Velvet Milkcap and looks so soft to the touch. Cool! Drew found this specimen on the side of our old county road, back in the forest, on the way home from a walk to what we call Beaver Bog. There are so many poisonous shrooms on our world, that we don't collect them to eat, just to photograph!

These mushrooms are mycorrhizal with spruce and fir, but can also be found growing from rotting wood, which I think this specimen is doing. They appear during late summer and fall. There is a great website, called Ultimate Mushroom, that has great photos and commentary on all kinds of shrooms. Check it out!

Fall Foliage Report Sept.22

 Yay! It's happening...the deciduous trees are changing color! Right now, the maple trees seem to be the first to change. Here is the Foliage Report that is put out by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. Check out MaineFoliage.com for information about leaf peeping around the state! By the way, In Bowdoin, we are on the border of Zones 1 and 3. Lewiston is in Zone 3.

Gray Treefrog

My buddy, Shannon, found this Gray Treefrog (Hyla versicolor) on the lid of a garbage can. It was the perfect spot to hang out on a cool late summer morning since the sun was shining intermittently on it through the trees. So, of course Drew and I had to hightail it over to her house for a short photo session. I had to add a ring light to the camera lens to illuminate the frog as it was still too shady in this location.

Did you know that Gray Treefrogs are actually bright green during breeding season and then slowly turn more greenish-gray as the summer wears on? They can change their color for camouflage when they need to. Sometimes they are even a grayish-black color in darker locations.

They often have a light colored patch under their eye which you can see here as a light green color. And, check out that bumpy skin! Some gray treefrogs have smooth skin!

They are generally no longer than 2.5" and feed on insects, along with the occasional frog meal since they are cannibalistic as well.

And, for fun, I did a close-up on the frog's eye. Pretty cool, huh! 

Attack of the Killer Tomato!

 Yowzer! The monster Hungarian Heart heirloom tomato weighed in at 2.048 pounds.

Photographing Sunspots

Here comes the sun! AND sunspots! Yahoooo! 

The tripod is sandbagged to reduce any motion as the camera lens is extended to almost its maximum length.

Yay! I have been waiting for sunspots to appear on the sun for awhile now. We have been in solar minimum for several years, but the sunspot numbers are growing and the sky was sunny and clear this morning making it a perfect time for photography.

In order to photograph the sun, you must put a solar filter on the camera so that the sun's rays don't enter the lens and blind you or ruin your camera sensor.

You have to put the threaded filter on the outside of the camera lens as you see here. The SolarLite filter is inexpensive at somewhere between $50-$70. Yes, there are much, much, much more expensive filters, but this one fits my budget.

It makes the solar image that you are taking look yellow-orange in color. This filter has a metallic polymer coating that blocks 99.999% of the light coming into the camera. 

Here is the first photo showing you the basic placement of the sunspots on the right side of the Sun. In this photo, you can just make out some darker smudges on the surface.

Our Nikon P-1000 has a equivalent 3,000 mm zoom. It is not as powerful as a telescope, nor will I ever get as sharp a photo as I would through a high end camera, but it does the job I need it to as it fits my budget!

Here I zoomed in a bit more and you can see the sunspots a bit better.

But wait! What are sunspots? They are areas where the magnetic field of the sun is disturbed. UCAR, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research has a somewhat simplified explanation.

Sunspot groupings are numbered by astronomers for research purposes. How cool is this? And, to think that I can image sunspots on a star that is 93 million miles from Earth is out of this world! Of course, the sun is massive (you can fit a million Earth's inside the Sun) and the sunspots themselves are massive, oftentimes bigger than Earth!

Here is my close-up photo of the sunspots where you can see the magnetic field has been disturbed. You can also see surface granulation that looks a bit pebbly all over the Sun's photosphere. This is where convection currents bring hotter plasma up from deep in the Sun and then cooler plasma sinks downward. By the way, plasma is a state of matter (along with solid, liquid, and gas) that occurs in super hot temperatures (like 100 million degrees F in the center of the Sun.) It is created when one or more electrons get stripped from a gas and the gas becomes electrically charged. It is affected by both electric and magnetic fields. Neato!

Do you want to keep track of what is happening on the Sun and our atmosophere? If so, you might want to check out Spaceweather.com, my go-to place for up to date information. I also get an Aurora Alert from them to let me know when to go outside and view auroras (aka the northern lights.)