July Nature Sightings in Herrontown Woods

Here are some images lingering in my mind and camera from days spent in the field in Herrontown Woods in July.

When the sun briefly shines through the canopy, illuminating life beneath the water's surface, you can look closely and see that one of these tadpoles is turning into a frog. Recent rains have kept the little vernal pool along the red trail well watered. 

Here's a very tall victory for habitat restoration. Towering over our land steward Ninfa is a Tall Meadowrue, living up and up to its name, topped by a cloud of subtle white flowers. This part of the preserve previously was dominated by a massive three acre clone of tree-tackling wisteria that we have been steadily subduing. 

The miniature flowers attract miniature bees--an oasis of tininess in our big big world.

Always a surprise to happen upon a box turtle hidden in the grass. Can anyone decode those hieroglyphics on its back.

The delight of happening upon a box turtle would not have been had if I hadn't been out there clipping off the hundreds of wisteria sprouts that still rise from the clone's massive root structure. Consistent cutting and treating of these shoots, which once climbed seventy feet into the canopy, will ultimately exhaust the wisteria's  sprawling root system. 

In the Barden, the bottlebrush buckeye flowers have been attracting a sphinx moth that looks and flies like a miniature hummingbird. It shifts from one flower to the next, probing for nectar with extraordinary precision.

Butterfly numbers have been down, but there was the pleasure of counting seven on a large buttonbush shrub in a raingarden uphill of Veblen House. By corralling runoff before it reaches the house, the raingarden feeds pollinator plants while keeping the basement dry.

If you have a garden, you may have some weed grasses that look like these: giant foxtail and barnyard grass. Pull them out before their seeds mature.

Some weeks ago, a mysterious "crack!" was heard near the Veblen garage. A minute later, another crack, then another. What was going on? Where was the sound coming from? Then a big red oak began to tilt slightly, then some more, until "SNAP!", the trunk broke off some six feet up from the ground, and the tree crashed down into the circular stone horse run. Why would a healthy looking, 100 foot tall tree topple over on a windless day? 

These curious bits of sawdust, noticed a few days later, surely provide a clue. Could Ambrosia beetles do this to a tree?

Less unexpected are the puffballs that rise in front of Veblen House this time of year.