Wood Lily Time

Lilium philadelphium

Elsa was not the only storm to hit Nantucket.  Our three sons, their wives and three grandchildren 5 and under visited for a week.  Fantastic fun,  but limited #NantucketWild.  

I hiked Squam Farm and Squam Swamp on Monday, July 19,  and was treated to my first wood lilies of the year, an Eastern Wood-Pewee singing,  and the "early bird"  Great Crested Flycatcher catching a worm.

 

Tropical Storm Elsa: A Walk in the Woods

       

Indian Pipes, Monotropa uniflora

            Squam Swamp is a wonderful wood, deep and wet and filled with ferns.  It seems primal, likely to host fairies in its  mossy stumps. Today’s walk during Tropical Storm Elsa gave hints of the late summer and fall to come.  The first red leaves were on the path along with swamp azalea blooms,  and  the mushrooms seemed more late summer than high summer.  But there were still some late daisies in sunny spots.

I was seeking Indian Pipes , monotropa uniflora, which I’ve seen here in July in the past.  I found it between posts 12 and 14. It is also  called Ghost Pipes.

The mushrooms made it seem more like fall:  from  golden chanterelles to the deadly amanita ( eastern North American Destroying Angel.)The eastern platterfull mushroom (megacollybia rodmanii) and jellied coral fungus rounded out the shrooms.

Golden Chantarelles

Cantarellus cibarius

Deadly Amanita

Amanita Bisporigera, Destroying Angel

Megacollybia rodmanii
Eastern American Platterful Mushroom

Milestone Bog

 

July 8:  One whole section of Milestone bog is hosting hundreds of swamp candles,  lysimachia terristris.  Take the main path and turn left into the bog at the stand of pines.  Magnificent to see huge stands of flowers in the bogs, both Milestone and  Windswept,  as they move away from cranberry production.

The early flowers of "sickle-leaved aster," pityopsis falcata, are along the paths,  but the meadowsweet, spirea tomentosa,  is yet to flower.  The stands of aletris, colicroot,  are still visible in the meadows.

Sickle-leaved golden aster,
pityopsis falcata

Meadowsweet, spirea tomentosa

Chowing Down

 The common yellowthroats are The UMASS Field Station were having a feast when we visited on July 5.  There was also a bonus of  3 greater yellowlegs and a spotted sandpiper.

Mama and babies

 

  

 Piping plover mama banded 9VE does the broken win trick at Smith's Point on July 6 to divert me from seeing her chicks.

Berries

 

The promise of spring is that the blossoms will mature into fruit.  The low-bush blueberries are now here,  and the high-bush blueberries are on their way.  The bearberries, bayberries and beach plums are growing.  Summer is looking like a promise fulfilled.

High bush blueberries

Low bush blueberries

Low bush blueberries

Bayberries

Bearberries

Beach Plums

Fox grapes

Beach plums

 

Scents of Summer

 

June 2:  As I walked this morning at Norwood Farm,  the scent of swamp azalea filled me up.    It was the pleasure of a deep inhalation that you don’t want to exhale.  The scents of summer on Nantucket that are unforgettable are swamp azalea, privet and sweet pepper. 

Some might say the salt spray sea smell is the hallmark aroma of the island, but for me it is those shrubs.  Of course the  roses and lilies are fine, and even the honeysuckle, but they are not the most emblematic in my book.

The swamp azalea,  rhododendron viscosum,  is now open at all the ponds and wet places.  It lights up the pond shrubbery and sends its enticing scent abroad.  I can see the sweet pepper getting ready to bloom,  but will have to wait until later in the month, or August.  The privet is blooming on the hedges waiting to be clipped.

Bernd Heinrich:  "We humans have experimented with various social systems; some have endured and others not.  I believe, however, that our well-being is tied not so much to the structure of our society and the politics that determine it,  as to our ability to maintain contact with nature,  to feel that we are part of the natural order and that we are capable of making a living within it." The Snoring Bird