Hiking the ROW Part 1

Fairpoint Communications telephone pole ID

On our property there is a right of way (ROW) up to the ridegeline of Barton Mountain for electricity and cables to the cell towers up top. This past September, Fairpoint put in fiber optic cables on those poles. I wrote about this invasion in an earlier post. Because of our concern about the Fairpoint activity we saw from the house, we decided to climb up the ROW to see what damage had been done to the land. We saw plenty. Unfortunately, I didn't take photographs of the damage, but it is still visible and will be visible for years. I will return after mud season to document the damage better. The photos here in this multipart photographic essay are of our activity on the hike — of John, me and the cats Buddy and Oscar. Despite our anger at the invasion, we had a wonderful afternoon. I took only my 70-250mm lens, which was inadequate for most of the macro photos here. Next time I'll take the whole kit and caboodle.

Looking down the ROW.
Our home is through the woods to the left.

Looking up the ROW.
All trails end at the bottom of those cliffs, which is where bear and bobcat live.

Buddy wanted to rest here.
He actually wanted to turn back and go home, but continued on with us.

A couple of chickadees kept a close eye on us the entire hike.

We found even more apple trees from the orchard a century ago!

White Worm Coral Fungus (Clavaria fragilis)

Bear scat full of chokecherry pits.

To be continued . . . .

To view the other photos:
Introduction: Strangers on the mountain
Hiking the ROW: Part 1
Hiking the ROW: Part 2
Hiking the ROW: Part 3

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Puffballs for Supper

Giant Puffball Mushroom (Calvatia gigantea)

I can't tell you where because it's a secret that we will keep, but in late August we found a small stand of giant puffball mushrooms. These are one of John's favorites, so he happily picked them for supper that night.

I've seen photos of these bigger than basketballs!

When we returned home, John thinly sliced his 'rooms and melted a quarter pound of butter on the stove. He fried the puffball slices and soon had a full tummy!

I tried a slice but my refined, junk food city girl taste buds found the mushroom too earthy and tasteless. Maybe next year I'll be able to choke some down.

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Wordless Wednesday: Spiny Puffball Mushrooms

Lycoperdon echinatum

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Published! (Again!)

My photos in Northern Woodlands Autumn 2010 edition.

Northern Woodlands Magazine contacted me a couple of months ago asking to use some of my mushroom photos for their autumn edition and I said yes. I have always enjoyed reading the magazine and intended, always, to subscribe. Now I have. They have a great website at northernwoodlands.org. You should peruse it and sign up for their free e-mail newsletter. You can subscribe from the site too, for their print magazine. You can view my photos and the article by Charles W. Johnson on page 16. Johnson has written at least 3 books.One, Bogs of the Northeast, is on my list of books to read as soon as possible (since, as you all know, we live on the beaver bog here) and it's at the library!. Johnson has another great mushroom article here.

The owner of the thumb holding the edible Chantarelle mushroom is my husband, John. Remember: don't even touch the poisonous mushrooms! John knows how to handle them and never touches anything after touching them until he washes in a brook. This is the perfect time of year to go into the woods and find mushrooms. The autumn rains help the spores grow and bloom very quickly. When you photograph mushrooms be sure to get the gills underneath. The stem, and how it connects to the mushroom head, is important too. Now get out there and take a pile of photos!


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Sights Behind the Dump — Flora

I have already posted many photos of the plants, mushrooms and fungi from this hike (here, here, here, and here). But the photos in this post have stories to tell.

Above is young hobblebush (Viburnum lantanoides) that is frequently covering the forest floor. John and I have been wondering for months what this is. We see it everywhere. While researching another plant that we had found, John fell upon the identification of this foliage. It has died back significantly here in October and is usually waist high. The colors of the leaves vary whether the brush is in sun or shade. The blooms in spring are magnificent (go look at them in my hobblebush set). It is as if there are two different flowers on one bush. I am very familiar with the flowers so I am very pleased to now be acquainted with the foliage of hobblebush.

I was thrilled when we came across the fungi above. I had seen pictures of the hericium fungus in books. John had said he had seen it here but I hadn't seen it until this hike. In the pictures, and in real life, the fungus reminds me of ice falls on cliffs in the winter. It is delicate and beautiful. We found a couple of growths of hericium on this hike.

There were, literally, hundreds of this mushroom in the woods on the day we hiked behind the dump. This is American Pine Mushroom (Armillaria ponderosa). I didn't recognize it because it looked, here, so different from when when I saw it before. Mushroom identification is tricky. The same species can look totally different depending on whether it just sprouted, is mature, or is fading away. It can even look different if is a wet week or a dry week or if slugs have eaten it. The first American Pine mushroom I ever saw was green with algae from a solid ten days of rain.

This mushroom above is a wood hedgehog mushroom (Hydnum repandum). Great name! It doesn't have gills underneath. It has "spines," as you can see below:


We prefer to hike on cool, cloudy days. I find clouds better for my photographs and the clouds keep us cool. This hike was like the others and began on a cloudy day. Suddenly, halfway through the hike, the sun broke out. As I looked up to see the sun, I saw this brilliant foliage and took photos of it.

This photo above is of a club moss — Treelike Club Moss (Lycopodium dendroideum). Our forests are thick with various club mosses on the floor. Club mosses are so important that when I lived in Vermont, and when we had a teacher's inservice day, we were taught and quizzed orally on our ability to identify club mosses. It was not the subject of the mathematics inservice, but it was important. We have to preserve our club mosses. Why? I'm not sure yet. Sorry. I have so much to learn! I'll let you know when I look it up!

Now the photograph above is interesting. It is a Japanese maple tree, an invasive species, eaten up by a moose. There were so many signs of moose about us on this hike that I got the creeps. I was always looking for a place to hide if a moose showed up. (Yes, I am irrationally afraid of them because all I know is that they trample people. I have seen many moose but I have always been in my house or in my car, not out in the open forest.) Anyhow, John explained why this invasive tree has not taken over our northern forest. It is a combination of moose predation and climate. The moose actually spread the tree through their dung. But they love the tree so much as food that they eat it before it can grow too much. A few do grow and reproduce, but not enough to take over the forest. And then the winter stunts the growth and kills off unsuccessful saplings. So it seems to be a great combination of circumstance for our mooses.

The tree above is a dead spruce. We can't even tell whether it is red, blue or black spruce. It was very dramatic in person and I don't think I captured the drama of this huge ancient tree standing dead in the forest.

We have no idea what this beautiful plant is above. John sees it often. The leaves are striped just like a trout lily but it's not trout lily. It is very small and grows on rotting leaf litter in the darkest glades of the forest. We actually dug one up and have planted it at home inside tupperware with a huge amount of leaf litter that we brought with it. It is doing very well.

Here, above, we saw a wonderful, stately, ancient yellow birch tree (Betula alleghaniensis). It was near the stone wall pasture. It was so old that we knew it had seen the wall being built and had given the cows shade on hot days and protection during storms. It has been struck by lightning at least once during the past centuries. It has the normal insect and fungal damage. Yet it stands tremendously tall and strong and proud. We were grateful to see that the old farmer long ago never cut this birch down.

Finally we have one of my favorite forest plants: Indian cucumber (Medeola virginiana). I have eaten many of the roots of this plant. It tastes sweet and cool. It is very small, but in a pinch, if you are starving to death in the woods, you can eat this root. You can see the root and foliage of this plant in the Indian cucumber photo set. Click on this photo to view the large image. The coloring of the leaves around the berry is beautiful to look at. By the way, the berries are different colors during different stages of growth. But the plant remains the same: six leaves in a circle below the three leaves on a tall stem.

Behind the Dump Hike

Technorati Tags: hobblebush Viburnum lantanoides hericium American pine mushroom Armillaria ponderosa wood hedgehog mushroom Hydnum repandum Treelike Club Moss Lycopodium dendroideum yellow birch tree Betula alleghaniensis Indian cucumber Medeola virginiana Del.icio.us Tags: hobblebush Viburnum lantanoides hericium American pine mushroom Armillaria ponderosa wood hedgehog mushroom Hydnum repandum Treelike Club Moss Lycopodium dendroideum yellow birch tree Betula alleghaniensis Indian cucumber Medeola virginiana Flickr Tags: hobblebush Viburnum lantanoides hericium American pine mushroom Armillaria ponderosa wood hedgehog mushroom Hydnum repandum Treelike Club Moss Lycopodium dendroideum yellow birch tree Betula alleghaniensis Indian cucumber Medeola virginiana


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Morey's Pond: A Natural History Adventure

In the middle of July we hiked around Morey Pond in Andover (elevation 1329 ft (405 m)) and saw many things that taught Wingnut about natural history. I thought this post would be an opportunity for you to see how we three explore nature together. All links are either to wikipedia.org articles that you can use for more information, to other posts on my blogs, or to photos on Flickr. If you click on a photo, you will open a new page to the Morey's Pond Set I created on Flickr for this hike. From that new page you may choose to view a larger image. Our greatest source of information is John, the most learned naturalist I have ever met. When none of us know a thing, or when we want to learn more, we search the Internet. Often, we find details in my photographs that we need to investigate more, also. Each hike, bike ride or kayaking trip is full of wonder, beauty and learning.

Geography

The first three photographs are scenic views of Mount Kearsarge as seen from the pond trail. Kearsarge has a fascinating history and geology. Kearsarge is classified as a monadnock mountain and can therefore be seen from numerous places in this area.



Morey Pond (or Morey's Pond) is listed in extremely brief mentions on the web as a reservoir for Andover, NH. There is a dam at the opposite end of the remote parking area. When we were at the dam, I turned around and photographed this outlet of the pond that runs to the dam (below). Beavers are re-engineering the human dam to better serve their own needs.

PLANTS: The plant life is typical for this area.

Above: Blue fruit of Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis).

These blueberries are the reason we went to Morey Pond: to see how the crop was this summer. In Vermont the blueberry farm was smaller than the acreage of wild blueberry bushes here! There are both low and high bush berries on the pond. They had just begun to ripen and we planned to return for picking. But because of construction in the house, two heat waves, grief from the cats, and other things, we never did.

Above: Blue Flag (Iris versicolor) is one of my favorite wildflowers.

Above: I haven't yet identified this mushroom (I could simply holler across the room and ask John but I haven't!).

Above: Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea)

Animal Life

Above: John and I saw this bird scat on a shoulder high branch with dead branches above it. Some carnivorous bird (but not an owl), such as a hawk or eagle, left this here while perched above waiting for prey.

Above and below: evidence of beaver (Castor canadensis). Above you see John standing while waiting for Wingnut to tie his shoe. We are near a tree that was not quite felled by beaver last winter. How do we know that they chewed it in the winter? The cut is high above the ground at just the height that the snow pack would be. A beaver can not climb a tree to cut it down and are not big enough to chew it at this height. The weathering of the cuts on the wood also tell us it was a few months ago that it was chewed. Below you see a closer shot of the tooth marks on the tree.

Above: the human dam as the beavers re-design it. I choose this shot because of the water effects that I got (after two years of trying) in the camera.

Above: halfway between the parking area and the dam is this underground beaver lodge on an outlet (or beaver canal) of the pond. I don't see too many lodges built under the bank of a stream, so this was a treat. I wanted to poke around inside it but was too nervous to try. Who knows who lived there still?

Above: a woodpecker tree. Used for food and nesting but I don't know by what species. Nobody was in residence this season. This was probably made by a pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus).

Above: a Red-spotted Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens) that I almost stepped on.

Above: A Green Frog (Rana clamitans melanota)

Morey's Pond Set

Finally, below you will find links to the blogs, photos and links of other people on Delicious, Technorati, Furl (now Diigo) and Flickr. These are excellent resources for any person interested in natural history. Often an amateur naturalist will have a clearer description or a better photo than a professionally created guide book.. Compulsive bloggers, like myself, will take the time to research what we post and to correctly tag every single post and photograph with the scientific and common names of plants and animals. I have organized my Flickr sets into collections of wildflowers, birds, insects, and more to make it easier for people to browse and perhaps identify a creature or plant from outdoors. Click here to see my collections.

Take advantage of our efforts for you and use us as a resource. We've learned a phenomenal amount about genus, species, origins of names and common misidentifications. On your next outing, take a close look around to see what you can find!

Technorati Tags: Green Frog Rana clamitans melanota Pileated Woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus Red-spotted Newt Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens beaver Castor canadensis Cinnamon Fern Osmunda cinnamomea Blue Flag Iris versicolor blueberries Lily of the Valley Convallaria majalis Mount Kearsarge Morey Pond Andover New Hampshire

Del.icio.us Tags: Green Frog Rana clamitans melanota Pileated Woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus Red-spotted Newt Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens beaver Castor canadensis Cinnamon Fern Osmunda cinnamomea Blue Flag Iris versicolor blueberries Lily of the Valley Convallaria majalis Mount Kearsarge Morey Pond Andover New Hampshire

Flickr Tags: Green Frog Rana clamitans melanota Pileated Woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus Red-spotted Newt Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens beaver Castor canadensis Cinnamon Fern Osmunda cinnamomea Blue Flag Iris versicolor blueberries Lily of the Valley Convallaria majalis Mount Kearsarge Morey Pond Andover New Hampshire

Furl Tags: Green Frog Rana clamitans melanota Pileated Woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus Red-spotted Newt Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens beaver Castor canadensis Cinnamon Fern Osmunda cinnamomea Blue Flag Iris versicolor blueberries Lily of the Valley Convallaria majalis Mount Kearsarge Morey Pond Andover New Hampshire
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Wild Edibles: Oyster Mushrooms

On Burton Hill Road last Sunday, John spied these oyster mushrooms (shitake mushrooms) growing on sugar maples. They find damaged spots on the tree and grow under the bark, as you can see here. You typically harvest these mushrooms in early September or before the first frost.

In the links that I read, I found that these mushrooms have cancer fighting properties and can also reduce cholesterol. I guess I should include them in my cooking (which John does habitually).

Burton Hill Road Set

Technorati Tags: oyster mushrooms
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