Mid-August Diary

 

Pearl Crescent butterfly
 on a Sweet Everlasting

August 11:  At Masquetuck, a lone red eyed vireo continues to sing.  The marsh is changing color now and the sea lavender is blooming.  A belted kingfisher hunts at the edge of Polpis Harbor. 

August 12:  Highlight of my hike at Eel Point  is two immature little blue herons! Multiple night herons, great and snowy egrets and peeps.

Immature Little Blue Heron

August 14-15: Hard to distinguish the "special" terns like the Roseate, Arctic and Forster's from the common terns.  Trips to Sesachacha Cut and to Low Beach to check them out.  The killdeer and least terns are regulars at Sesachacha near Caleb's Pond-  where  the shores are covered with marsh fleabane (pluchea odorata),  which is much prettier than its name.  Rose mallow highlight are Squam Pond.  I am eyeing the beach plums at the entrance to Low Beach.

Squam Pond

Lesser Yellowlegs

August 16: There are luscious but unripe grapes at Entry to Ram Pasture from Marvin’s woods.  They are on my list for picking later! The scent of the sweet pepper is waning.  The coastal JoePye weed and the pearly everlasting are blooming at Marvin's Woods and on the Head of the Plains.  Yellows are appearing but it is not full-on goldenrod season yet. The ospreys have flown south.  The kingbirds are still hawking for insects and there are more of them!

Coastal JoePye Weed

White Coastal JoePye Weed

August 17: Mushrooms emerge after the rain at Squam Swamp:  Milky Bonnets (Hemimycena lactea), Fragile Dapperlings (Leucocoprinus fragilissimus),  Fishbiscuit Russulas (Russula compacta).  One great crested flycatcher and a number of towhees, catbirds, bluejays and a chucking common yellowthroat. So green in the fog...still the scent of sweet pepper and even a late swamp azalea.  I missed the little club spurred bog orchids,  which Kelly Omand says is between posts 20 and 21 in late July..

Fragile Dapperlings

Milky Bonnets

Russula

Biking to Jewel Pond on the moors, I see a lesser yellowlegs and a  least sandpiper , which must have popped over from Sesachacha. The pond is really low, and fringed by gratiola aurea, Pipeworts (eriocaulon aquaticum), and Virginia morning beauties (rhexia virginiana).

Morning Beauties

Sweet Pepper and Supermoons

 

Sweet Pepper,
clethra alnifolia

I set off to hike Norwood Farm in search of smelling the sweet pepper, clethra alnifolua, in bloom. It is hard to describe how it’s scent  demands focus.  The sarsaparilla odor takes over my senses.  If you want to be removed from the cares and craziness of the rest of the world, walking scented paths reigns supreme. Between the scent, listening for birdsong, watching for favorite wildflowers  and following flitting butterflies, how could I possibly think of anything else? Smells subdue Trump’s indictment, US debt downgrade,  continuing war in Ukraine, controversies over college admissions....

The little ladies tresses orchids (spirantheses tuberosa) were in bloom!  The St John’s cross, hypericum stragulum, was also out.  The sickleleaf silk-grass, pityopsis falcata, were in full bloom along the Pout Pond road. They used to be known as sickleleaf asters.  I hadn’t seen barn swallows before at Norwood Farm, but they darted past  in the insect heaven.

Little Ladies' Tresses,
Spiranthese tuberosa

St. John's Cross,
hypericum stragulum

Intimations of summer’s decline were evident: The first of the goldenrods, the slender goldentop (euthamia caroliniana),  have opened, and the leaves of the Tupelo are turning their red and mahogany.  But there was still the clatter and clamor of young eastern towhees and catbirds near the ponds. 

Slender Goldentop

Sickleleaf Silkgrass

Tupelos

Tupelo leaf

Last night was the first of August 2023's two supermoons, the Sturgeon Moon.  According to the Farmer's Almanac,  this is the time of year that indigenous populations found large numbers of sturgeon easy to catch in the Great Lakes.  I don't know if I've ever eaten sturgeon.