Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens – Part 1

We made our first trip of the season to Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens yesterday. We usually do not go until late June when the lotuses are blooming….but we both wanted a short activity for the morning that involved photography. Kenilworth was a good choice.

The sweet bay magnolias that have been planted within the gardens over the past few years were blooming. They are not a large as the southern magnolias – their smaller proportions a quite appealing along paths of places like Kenilworth.

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There were three types of flags in bloom at the edges of the ponds: 2 native – Iris prismatica (the slender blue flag iris)

And the Iris versicolor (the larger blue iris), and

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One invasive – Iris pseudacorus (the yellow flag iris).

The water lilies – white and pink – were the most numerous flowers of the day.

Tomorrow I’ll post about the animals we saw.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 26, 2018

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The Secret Science of Shell Seeking – Shells and Sanibel, Florida. Hopefully the sea will not become so acidic that shellfish become less numerous over time.

Old sea ice continues disappearing from the Arctic Ocean | NOAA Climate.gov – Quite a difference in the amount of old sea ice between 1984 and 2018. It’s tough to be a polar bear or any other creature that depends on sea ice.

The secret to honing kid’s language and literacy -- ScienceDaily – Children need enough sleep, playing games, and time without distractions in the background as well as having books read to them…to encourage language and literacy development.

Compound Interest - The chemistry behind how dishwashers clean – The post didn’t address why glass becomes etched by dishwashers over time…so I was a little disappointed. Otherwise, seemed to cover the bases.

Twin Satellites Map 14 Years of Freshwater Changes: Image of the Day – Analysis of observations from multiple satellites to determine where freshwater is changing on Earth. One of the sources of data was GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) that collected data through 2017. The follow-on was launched this past week (on May 22) - Meet NASA’s New Dynamic Duo: A Pair of Climate Change-Tracking Satellites | Smart News | Smithsonian

Fox Photos Capture the Diverse Personalities of the Wild Animals – We occasional see fox around – entering or leaving the forest behind our house. I’ve never managed to photograph one.

BBC - Future - Pain bias: The health inequality rarely discussed – I’m glad I am healthy….but wonder what will happen if I ever do need medical attention. This post is part of series from BBC Future about how men and women experience the medical system differently.

Climate change broadens threat of emerald ash borer -- ScienceDaily – Here in Maryland, our ash trees are dying now. Many have been cut down this year.

Buyer beware: Some water-filter pitchers much better at toxin removal: Study finds some purifiers remove twice the microcystins from risky water -- ScienceDaily – Evidently the slower filters (and often more expensive) do a better job.

Thomas Jefferson and the telegraph: highlights of the U.S. weather observer program | NOAA Climate.gov – A little history of weather observations in the US….the earliest being in the 1640s. Thomas Jefferson bought his first thermometer about the time he wrote the Declaration of Independence and his barometer about the time he signed it….and maintained records until 1816. George Washington also took regular observations….the last entry being the day before he died.

Ten Little Celebrations – May 2018

My celebrations in May were all about aspects of being outdoors in spring –

Finding a snail on a blade of grass at Belmont during a BioBlitz with 7th graders.

Catching the horse chestnut tree in bloom at Belmont.

Discovering a black rat snake coiled in an oak tree when I was hiking with kindergarteners and talking out what might live in the tree.

The smells of spring (and trying to figure out which plant it is).

Seeing an orchard oriole and Baltimore oriole during a birding event in Baltimore…firsts for me.

And the same was true for the kingbird.

Discovering new perspectives on common plants with a macro lens on my Smartphone

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Brookside Gardens – there is something there many months of the year. This May it was dogwoods and butterflies (in the conservatory)….and the many subjects for macro photography that the gardens contain.

Warmer days --- but having time indoors with air conditioning when it is overly warm.

A rainy day at home was something to celebrate because we had been so dry earlier in the spring…and because I needed a day off from field trips and butterfly exhibit volunteering. May is probably one of the peak months for the type of volunteering I do.

Howard County Living Farm Heritage Museum

The Howard County Living Farm Heritage Museum was a place I’ve never been before this week – was there as a volunteer to support all day field trips for several schools.

My role was to guide the student scientists as they analyzed forest soil (our entry to the forest was marked by a cone). One of the days was more challenging when heavy rain moved it…mud everywhere! Fortunately the temperature was warm enough and the students remained enthusiastic about what they were doing; we retreated to the shed and analyzed the (very wet) soil.

Before the students arrived, I did a little photography. Plants are always a favorite…and I’m still experimenting with the clip-on macro lens for my smartphone camera.

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I looked at the rust on an old plow.

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There was a very large tree that looked like the trunk had been twisted. There were several kinds of lichen and moss growing on it.

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As I walked around the tree, I noticed the bark had formed and eye-like pattern…like a dragon just waking up.

Baltimore Birding – part 3

We continued our Baltimore Birding experience with a walk around Fort McHenry the next morning. It was mostly sunny and warmer. Even with the better light and no rain – I saw more birds than I managed to photograph. I’m featuring the ones that say still long enough for me to get the camera in position. There were quite a few Great Crested Flycatchers (I remember seeing one in my back yard last year about time…posted about it here).

There were American robins in the grass.

The small birds moved around rapidly in the trees. I think this one is an orchard oriole.

I photographed mushrooms when I saw them. The mulch was support several groupings….and a sycamore stump had a collection of small shelf fungus.

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There was a grackle aggressively defending a trash can at the front of the visitor center.

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There were mallards about. There was a female that looked calm for the moment…the males were being very aggressive.

There was a ‘mixed breed’ duck…probably mallard and a domestic duck of some kind.

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There were some sycamores along the path that did not look healthy. I wondered if salt water incursion was happening through the seawall around the fort….or maybe they are all the same age and getting old. I took a picture of one that already had its top gone; there was a knot with leaves sprouting at about eye level with ‘wrinkles’ on all sides – almost like skin.

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We headed over to a marshy are beside the fort…and I managed to finally get a picture of a one kind of swallow we say: a tree swallow. We saw barn swallows on our walk as well.

Overall our Baltimore Birding experience provided a different perspective on the city. I would guess that birding in just about any city would have the same results. Maybe it is something we should do more often….although the amount of trash (particularly in the water) is always depressing.

Baltimore Birding – part 2

Continuing from yesterday’s post….

We continued along the Gwynn Falls/Middle Branch trail and it seemed to get darker and wetter. Here were mushrooms coming up in the grass beside the path.

My husband held the umbrella while I took a picture of a yellow warbler and

Some very wet flowers.

The cedar waxwing only showed up in silhouette.

We walked out of the trail and closed the loop back to the cars along the street. Under some bushes beside a fence – a common yellow-throat was busy in the mulch.

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We got back into the cars and continued to the Middle Branch Park boathouse. We trooped over the wet grass to paved paths were full of puddles. I was glad I’d worn my boots! I saw a Baltimore Oriole and managed to photograph an orchard oriole.

The last bird of the day was a kingbird that seemed to pose for pictures – moving to show both sides.

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Tomorrow I’ll post about our birding around Fort McHenry.

May 2018 Tree Status

All the trees are growing well with the warmer temperatures and rain. The sycamore behind our house has lots of small green seed balls among its new leaves; last year a freeze came at the wrong time and the tree only produced one seed ball.

The tulip poplar is full of flowers as usual. Its leaves are larger than the sycamores at this point. Later in the season the sycamore leaves will be the largest.

The maple had so many seeds early in the month that they made the tree look brownish…but then the were blown off the tree and the maple looks like is normal summer self.

The sweet gums are starting new seed balls as well. They look like spikey globes among the leaves.

But the celebration of tree blooms this month is the horse chestnut. The tree I photographed is at the end of the drive up to the manor house. The top fell out of the tree several years ago but the part that Is left is blooming profusely. I stopped one day after I finished hiking and leaned out the open window of my car to take some pictures of the flowers.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 19, 2018

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Top 25 Arid Birds – National Geographic Blog and Top 25 Woodland Birds – National Geographic Blog and The Best of the Top 25: Part 1 – National Geographic Blog and The Best of the Top 25: Part 2 – National Geographic Blog – Birds and more birds! I’m catching up on a lot of ‘top 25’ posts that have been accumulating.

Millennials Begin To Change The Face Of Camping In National Parks And Beyond  - Positive trends – more people camping…and more diversity. Great vacations…outdoors.

Historic Low Sea Ice in the Bering Sea: Image of the Day – Big changes to the amount of ice.

Algae Blooms in Lakes & Oceans Creating Pollution That Harms People, Pets, & The Planet | CleanTechnica – Who want to do anything in green water. Ugh! Another reason to slow the flow and reduce the extra nutrients that we send into our rivers, streams and lakes (that cause algae blooms).

World’s Largest Victorian Glasshouse Opens Doors After Five-Year Restoration Project | Smart News | Smithsonian – It’s easier to the structure of the building at this point…before the many new plants get very large and block the view. The building was originally opened in 1863…and this was it first restoration.

Alligators on the beach? Killer whales in rivers? Get used to it: Large predators once hunted to near-extinction are showing up in unexpected places -- ScienceDaily – Rebounding populations! They are returning to hunting grounds where they were common before hunting caused their near extinction.

Five Tips to Help Frogs and Toads in Your Yard: The National Wildlife Federation – Good recommendations for frogs…and wild life in general. I may repurpose my daughters old ‘turtle sandbox’ into a vernal pool (but will have to monitor it for mosquito larvae)

Why Teenagers Should Understand Their Own Brains (And Why Their Teachers Should Too!): NPR Ed: NPR – After being around middle school students this week…this article caught my interest. I’m glad we are learning more about the teenage brain and can come up with solutions to the problems caused to their sleep pattern by early school start times.

How Seeds from War-Torn Syria Could Help Save American Wheat - Yale E360 – From a seed bank near Aleppo…saving the seeds from the bank by taking them into Aleppo to Lebanon and now Kansas State and North Dakota State Universities developing wheat that is resistant to Hessian fly which has been an increasing problem with climate change (higher temperatures enough that the flies were not killed by the cold of winter, less water) significant enough that US grain yields were falling. Hurray for a diverse seed stock (and the US should take note to develop diversity rather than destroying via monoculture agriculture).

For how long will the USA remain the Nobel Prize leader? Empirical study on historical development allows a prognosis -- ScienceDaily – The graph is not positive for the US. It looks like the UK is recovering from a trough that developed in the 1990s while the US peaked in the 1980s and has been going down since then (the metric being Nobel prizes per year per 100 million inhabitants).

2018 Belmong BioBlitz – part 2

Continuing from yesterday….there was a web of very small spiders just off the path. They were all moving rapidly although it wasn’t clear where they going!

Another benefit of the rain was the increased visibility of spider webs in the grass. Sometimes we could even see the spider hiding in the ‘funnel’ of the web.

These small white flowers were found down by the pond. They aren’t native – probably planted sometime during Belmont’s long history - but they are propagating themselves at this point.

The lichen and moss seemed to have richer colors because of the dampness all three days of this year’s BioBlitz.

During one of the few times the sun came out (on the second day) – the group found a snail on blade of grass. Shortly after this picture was taken the snail’s weight bent the grass…a little drama in the meadow.

The group also documented a stand of locust trees – native but invasive; the stand was probably started by fill dirt that included the seeds.

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When we started the last day, we thought it might start to rain at any time --- and were thrilled when we go about 1.5 hours of good observations – tadpoles, small insects, trees…and ropey roots under one of the big trees along the road. We headed back to the Carriage House at lunch time; it started to sprinkle as we got there.

The 2018 Belmont BioBlitz in a wrap!

2018 Belmont BioBlitz – part 1

I’ve been volunteering for the Howard County Conservancy’s Belmont BioBlitz field trips since they started in the fall of 2014. We had a 3-day BioBlitz this week with students coming from 2 schools. On the first morning the day started out foggy and stayed cloudy. While we were waiting for the buses to arrive with the students, I took some pictures.

The horse chestnut tree was blooming although the blooms were past their prime and some had fallen to the ground already. I took a picture of one with the macro lens on the cell phone.

All the vegetation was covered in water droplets. Even grass seeds look like little works of art with the droplets.

The buses came up the tree lined drive. There are more gaps in the tree line now that the ashes have been cut down.

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We headed back to our assigned ‘zone’ in the woods – finding white pines along the way to document and then a box turtle and violets gone to seed on the forest floor.

Stay tuned for more BioBlitz finds in tomorrow’s post.

Macro photography before hiking

Last week I was at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm for several field trips (kindergarteners and second graders). Before the field trips, I walked around the grounds and experimented with some more macro photography with my smartphone – using the same set up as I did at Brookside Gardens earlier (results from Brookside here).

It is sometimes surprising how different something looks with the macro lens. The textures along with the small structures I wouldn’t see otherwise are what makes it so appealing to walk around taking pictures with the macro lens. My favorite in this group is the baby pear.

The highpoint of the hikes with the school groups happened during the kindergarten field trip. I had walked up to the front of the farm house with my first group of the day. We were talking about what might live in the big oak tree near the house. They answered squirrels and birds right away. I turned around to look at the tree – and noticed a black coil in a depression of the trunk about at the eye level of children! The sun was shining on it like a spotlight. I turned back to the children and told them that black rat snakes live in trees too – and there was one right on the trunk of tree (and I was glad we were not standing any closer than we were). The two parent chaperones took a step back. The children just watched as the snake started moving and crawled under the loose bark of the tree. What a fabulous drama to start a field trip!

Brookside Wings and Wine

Earlier this week we attended an evening event at Brookside Gardens that included wine tasting and appetizers in the non-butterfly end of the conservatory building….then watching the butterflies respond to the sun sinking to the horizon.

When we first entered, the conservatory seemed calmer. The zebra longwings – and other butterflies – were beginning to find a roosting place in the fichus tree.

Others were on the walls or ceiling of the conservatory. I’m sure there were many that found a place in the foliage where I didn’t notice them.

There were two flowers on the passionflower vine that is the food plant for a couple of the longwing butterflies; there were no butterflies around it.

Just before sunset, the owl butterflies became more active – many dances through the air. I was waiting for the male cecropia moth that has emerged from its cocoon last Sunday to fly from where it had been hiding in the fichus tree all day. But it stayed where it was. These larger moths do not eat as adults so maybe there was no pheromone in the air of a female cecropia moth…and he didn’t feel the need to move!  I contented myself with a zoomed image of it through the foliage.

Macro Photography with a Smartphone

Before my second shift at Brookside Garden’s Wings of Fancy exhibit, I spent a few minutes doing some macrophotography with my Smartphone. I ordered a clip-on macro lens from Amazon last fall to use to photograph macroinvertebrates but haven’t done a lot of other photography with it until now.

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Brookside Gardens is a great place to experiment. There is so much in bloom right now including the buckeye near the conservatory. The flower has a very odd shape through the macro lens (it looks like it has Mickey Mouse ears!). Even the tips of evergreen shrubs become something unexpected.

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The center of the dogwood bloom is a riot of shapes. I’m going to photograph them again next time I go to see how it changes as the seeds start to develop.

Dandelion seed puffs are recognizable.

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Just about any flowers are good subjects for macrophotography.

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I ran out of time in the garden. My shift was beginning. I got one last picture just before the first visitors came into the exhibit – a spicebush butterfly egg on spicebush leaf. It looks like a very tiny pearl.

Blooming Pathways

During the same walk where we saw tulips near the end of their time in the Brookside Gardens, We noticed a lot of other spring finery along the pathways.

I always look at the ginkgo tree near the conservatory; the leaves are unfurling, and the mail flowers are abundant. Multiple leaves come out from a single bud, so they look like clumps early in the season. As the leaves get larger the clumps overlap and are not as obvious.

 The azaleas are beginning to bloom. Bushes peak at different times. Some were still just buds last week. The flowers that are a mix of white and deep pink are probably my favorites.

There was a peony near the path…. lovely from every angle.

Dogwoods are blooming too. The tree is one of my favorites. We had a dogwood in our yard when we first moved to the east coast 35 years ago; that’s when I really learned about the tree…observing it throughout the year. The trees in our area now survived the disease that wiped out many of the trees about 10 years ago….and they are blooming robustly this year.

So -  the blooms will fade, and their will be even more abundant greens – all shades…deepening into the richness of summer.

Last Day for Tulips

Last week my husband and I walked around Brookside Gardens enjoying the tulips. Some of the early bloomers were past prime enough that the volunteer gardeners were taking the bulbs up from the beds. I will have to find out next time we go to the garden what replaces tulips.

Some were widely open, and I enjoyed the curls and graceful curves of the waxy petals. My favorite tulips are the ones that are mostly yellow…tipped with orange. The colors remind me of sunrise and sunset.

There were some hybrid tulips up near the visitor center that were catching the mid-morning sunlight. They had a stronger scent and I wondered if the original plants were more heavily scented that the hybrids that we plant now. Tulips have gone through extreme breeding; perhaps bloom shape, color and longevity are more important than the smell.

I enjoy them all as a fleeting vision of spring. We’re on to the next round of blooms.

eBotanical Prints – April 2018

I am allowing myself one botanical print post in the main blog of this site each month. This is it for April – the books that contained botanical images that I read during the month. I’ll post about individual books in the eBotanicalPrints part of the site: Botanical blog. Also take a look at the botanical eBooks list to find links to over 1,000 eBooks available free from various sources.

I read 16 botanical eBooks in April and 15 sample images are shown below. The 16th book (about seed pods) is one that is still under copyright but is available for checkout from Internet Archive. The links to the books are below the sample images.

1. Album van Eeden 'Haarlem's flora' * Eeden, A.C. van * sample image
2. Bulb Gardening * Hampden, Mary * sample image
3. Popular Greenhouse Botany * Catlow, Agnes * sample image
4. Popular Field Botany * Catlow, Agnes * sample image
5. Herbarium amboinense * Rumpf, Georg Eberhard et al * sample image
6. The flowering plants, grasses, sedges, & ferns of Great Britain and their allies, the club mosses, horsetails, etc  - volume 5 * Pratt, Anne * sample image
7. The British Grasses and Sedges * Pratt, Anne * sample image
8. The flowering plants, grasses, sedges, & ferns of Great Britain and their allies, the club mosses, horsetails, etc  - volume 6 * Pratt, Anne * sample image
9. The practical gardener, and modern horticulturist; * McIntosh, Charles * sample image
10. The greenhouse, hot house, and stove * McIntosh, Charles * sample image
11. An introduction to botany, in a series of familiar letters * Wakefield, Priscilla * sample image
12. Nezashi takara v. 6 pt 2 * Tachibana, Morikuni * sample image
13. Flora's lexicon * Waterman, Catherine Harbeson * sample image
14. Draw 50 Flowers,Trees, Plants * Ames, Lee J; Ames, P. Lee * sample image
15. How to know ferns * Parsons, Frances Theodora * sample image
16. Pods: wildflowers and weeds in their final beauty: Great Lakes region, northeastern United States, and adjacent Canada * Embertson, Jane

Blemont’s Nature Place Space

I have been volunteering with the Howard Country Conservancy’s preschool programs at Belmont recently. The weather was a little cool for the first few weeks…but it’s warming up – a lot – this week.

The station I fill for most of the programs is about trees. We talk about trees growing from seeds and look at ones from trees around us like sycamore (pictured below), sweet gum, tulip poplar, and maple.

A new addition that the children enjoyed this week is a nature play space. There are still some features that will be added, but the preschoolers were excited to jump from stone to stone and to climb up onto the big log….all in the middle of the meadow where it was just warm enough for cabbage white butterflies to be moving about.

The joys of being outdoors in the springtime!

Backyard Walk – May 2018

Last month I posted about violets and spice bush. On an walk through the yard this week, I still say plenty of violets blooming and

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The spice bush was beginning to unfurl leaves. I hope there will be some spicebush swallowtails around this summer to produce several generations of butterflies in our forest.

The maple seeds are drying and will swirl away from the tree soon. The black walnut is beginning to unfurl its leaves. There are multiple leaves that unfurl from the buds on the tips of the stems as well as along it. The bud scars from last year are often visible. The tree lags the tulip poplars leafing out.

The high point of the walk around the backyard was not actually in the yard…it was just into the woods: A Jack-in-the-Pulpit! There are so many invasive plants in the forest that I always am relieved when I find a native making it through another spring. I'll try to pick a good day to spray myself with insect repellent (to keep the ticks away) and walk back into the forest before the prickle bush gets too thick to look for more native wildflowers.

The sycamore buds have just pops…with leaves too tiny to be very interesting yet. I’ll save it for the June post.

Wings of Fancy – 1st shift

I had my first shift for this season’s Wings of Fancy shift at Brookside Gardens earlier this week. The exhibit is opening an hour earlier this year to take advantage of the morning temperatures. Visitors will appreciate that during the summer. Like last year – I took a short walk around the gardens before heading into the conservatory. The gardens are lush even with the variability of rain and temperatures so far this spring.

The azaleas are blooming but I decided to walk through the are where the tulips are blooming….lots of color on a spring morning. I walked fast because it was chilly at 8:30 AM (in the 40s and breezy).

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I was in the conservatory waiting for the first visitors and decided to take a few pictures. I was surprise what I was able to do in 10-15 minutes! My theme was heads – eyes, antennae, proboscis, and papillae. I’m sure they’ll be many other butterfly pictures this season (the exhibit runs until September 16), but I’m pleased with my first batch. Hopefully a reflection of the happy place the exhibit creates comes through too!

Photography through a Window – April 2018

The juncos were in out backyard and frequent visitors to our feeder and birdbath at the beginning of the month…and then they left for their nesting grounds to north and west. We won’t see them here in Maryland until it gets cold again.

The big story of month for our backyard was more about trees than birds. The red maple bloomed and made seeds. I am watching for when the seeds helicopter away from the parent. Of course, some of our backyard birds (cardinals and goldfinches) were in tree for some of the pictures. They like to snack on the tender seeds.

The tulip poplar leaves are unfurling with the pods from last summer still holding a few seeds.

The sycamore is still looking very much like it has all winter; it is always one of the last to leave out.

The tree I haven’t photographed yet is the black walnut. I noticed last time I walked around that it had some leaves unfurling but it’s location requires that I walk to it rather than trying to photograph it through a window!