Chasing Porcupines at Night

When the quills lie up on the back, you know the porky is upset with you.

John saw this porcupine one night in September. He shined his large flashlight while I followed the porky in the dark, seeing the land only through the viewfinder. I literally could not see a thing and relied on John's directions of where to step. I was happy to get such clear results. I had set the camera on automatic to avoid as few shooting errors as possible under these circumstances.

We were invaded by porcupines this year. We thought they came because of the apples, but we have since found three porcupine dens that show evidence of them being here a long time. Perhaps they had a population explosion or something. But they are eating the apple and maple trees. And the barn. Buddy the Cat won’t even go outside when a porcupine is around (probably because of his last encounter with one, seen here).

_/\_/\_

Watch the Sparrow

Win!

_/\_/\_

Preserving

Spaghetti Sauce

Our first garden in Vermont was successful. Before the blight hit in September, we got enough tomatoes to can quarts of spaghetti sauce and tomatoes. We had over a couple of hundred pounds of cucumbers and made sweet relish, bread and butter pickles and dill pickles.

Making pickles.

With all of the apples and chokecherries, John made apple, cherry, and apple-cherry jelly.

John had planted a lot of squash seeds that he brought from New Hampshire. The trouble was, he had no idea what they were. They turned out to be Red Kuri squash, which I now like better than butternut. It is sweeter and more solid than butternut. It makes terrific pies. John processed and froze so much squash that we had to get another huge chest freezer!

Red Kuri squash on the vine.

A Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) on a squash leaf.

Bumblebees would often pile up six deep in a squash blossom.

I never did take photos of the apple sauce, apples, pies and cider that John preserved. But I do know that he made over 20 gallons of cider! It was a very fruitful harvest!

_/\_/\_

Cones

The photograph above is of the branches of a tamarack (American Larch) tree, one of my favorites. This is a deciduous conifer (a cone-bearing tree that sheds its needles). Native people used this tree to make canoes and kayaks. We are cultivating every seedling here that we find. The tamaracks glow orange in the late fall long after the other trees have shed their leaves in the autumn.

Large female cones

Tamaracks have male and female cones on the same tree. Above you see the large female cones. It is winter now and the ground is covered with snow. The tamaracks are bare — except that they still have these cones on them.

Male cones

In the photo above you can see (perhaps; you may need to click the photo and see the original size on Flickr) the itty, bitty male cones.The National Phenology Network tells us on their tamarack page that

The small, yellowish male cones bear pollen and the reddish brown female cones mature and become pale brown. Cone production begins when the tree matures at about 15-40 years of age, and pollination occurs by wind.

_/\_/\_

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.

_/\_/\_

The Stupid Things One Does When Bored

You take a fern photo from last summer and then try to create some paintography (and you don't even know what that is and can't afford the software to create it and don't have the time or patience to do it anyway but want to become artsy and creative) and then apply all sorts of filters in all sorts of software that you already spent too much money on and can't decide which you like best so you make a movie and then post it on your blog because you have nothing better to do. Nothing better to do? Yeah.

_/\_/\_

A Chickadee in Summer

_/\_/\_

My Frustration with Birds

American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla)

I spend a lot of time in the spring, summer and autumn stalking birds in the fields and woods. Some species, like sparrows, some finches and a few warblers are rather easy to see and capture on film. They stalk me while I stalk them (mostly because the cats are always with me and are a very good reason for the birds to stalk us). But there are other birds that defy capture. Two that obsessed me this past summer were the American Redstart (above) and the Black and White Warbler (below). They are both shy. The Redstart never seems to come out of the forest edge, so the lighting is awful. It also always kept its back to me. The Black and White Warbler was a bit shy, but the biggest problem was its speed. One second it is there, and the next it is gone. I can't predict where they will hop to from moment to moment, like I can with sparrows and other birds. I've been within five feet of a flock of Black and Whites and have never been able to raise, aim and fire quick enough. I'm pretty sure cats are OK for the Redstarts, but if I want to get a decent Black and White photo, I will have to lock the cats up. So until next season, these two photos are the only proof I have that these two warbler species live here.

Black and White Warbler (Mniotilta varia)

_/\_/\_

Strangers on the Mountain

Fiber optic installers on Barton Mountain

The back of our house has great views of the ridgeline of Barton Mountain. Nobody is ever there. We have no curtains and we have no modesty. We are always alone, with only thousands of acres of forest behind us, which is just the way we like it. Until last August. Suddenly there were strangers all over the place and we felt invaded.

There is a ROW on our land to the top of the mountain for cable and cell antennas. This summer, Fairpoint Communications, Vermont’s telephone service provider,  thought they needed to install fiber optic cables up the ROW. I chased off the guys who never asked permission to park on our land, and from that point on everybody was very polite and requested permission for parking. I also tried to scare them off by telling them to be careful of the bears and bobcats up on the cliffs (which really exist). But they are Vermonters and such critters don’t scare them. They hiked up unarmed, something we, who frequently hike up there, won’t do.

The installation took several days. There were men on top of the mountain who fed down the cable to the guys down here. But the guys down here also took cable off of a truck up the mountain as far as they could go. They used four-wheelers and wrecked up the land something wicked. They caused run-off, which is illegal (we have never reported them). They took the vehicle up over boulders instead of using an ancient road that paralleled their invasion. They chopped trees down and tossed them off the ROW and onto private property. Those trees will provide habitat for lots of animals, but it looks ugly and doesn't demonstrate any respect for the forest. I will post those photos in the near future.

Towards the end of the cable installation, some new strangers showed up above the house on the ROW and scared the hell out of me. Thanks to my long lens, I got a decent photo of them. But they can't be identified. Shucks. The photo was taken from the back door.

To view the photo essay of our hike to view the damage::
Introduction: Strangers on the mountain
Hiking the ROW: Part 1
Hiking the ROW: Part 2Hiking the ROW: Part 3

_/\_/\_

A Leaf Beetle

Leaf Beetle (Calligrapha philadelphica)

_/\_/\_

Can You Identify This Warbler?

_/\_/\_

Chickadees and Catkins

Black-capped Chickadee munching on Alder catkins

In August, the alder trees produce catkins. That's when the chickadees are really, really happy. They crawled over every stand of alder and ate till they burst. They were right-side up, upside down, hanging by one toe . . . anything to get at all the catkins.

Female alder catkins

We have green (or mountain) alders (Alnus viridis) here that grow in bushy groves. They like water. They have male and female catkins. The male catkins are long, dangly, soft and fuzzy. The female catkins look like tiny pinecones. Alder are food for so many birds and insects that I can't list them. Look around and see if you have any!

_/\_/\_

Wordless Wednesday: Spiny Puffball Mushrooms

Lycoperdon echinatum

_/\_/\_

A Couple of Bugs

Common House Fly (Musca domestica)

Green Stink Bug nymph (Chinavia hilaris)

_/\_/\_

Oscar’s Toes Part II

Peering at his captured grasshopper

Oscar’s Toes Part I is here.

_/\_/\_

Monarch Butterfly Laying an Egg on Milkweed

Danaus plexippus

_/\_/\_

The Longest Ovipositor. Ever.

Ichneumon Wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus)

That is an ovipositor, not a stinger. These wasps use that long ovipositor to drill holes through the bark of trees in order to lay their eggs. One of my goals next summer is to see the drilling live and close-up. They keep the ovipositor at a 90° angle to their body while they are drilling. This Ichneumon wasp was in the house in the window. After photographs, we took the screen down and let it out into the wilderness to lay those eggs. I wish I had followed it.

The wasp is quite lovely.

_/\_/\_

Lyndonville Heifers

_/\_/\_