September 2022

 August 31 My friend Alison, who lives in the woods near Haliburton, Ontario, has been seeing a bald blue jay, molting, at her feeders.  She sent this photo with stumpy little blue spikes of feathers just coming in on its head. A little embarrassing.

September 3 Susan noticed this group of three trees on our walk at the Arb this morning.  The one on the left is blossoming while the other two are covered in seed pods.

They have a great name: golden rain trees, reflecting their clusters of bright yellow flowers

which eventually produce lantern-like seed pods.

The Arb acquired these trees from North Korea in 2001; hard to believe they could get them from there today.  

Walking partway up Bussey Hill we see a hawk flying fast and low under the canopy of the trees, fairly close to us.  Exciting!

This afternoon, looking over at my neighbor's yard, I see a downy woodpecker perched on the bamboo mat screen hiding his heat pump, looking a bit incongruous there. And this evening, watering my garden, I see a female ruby-throated hummingbird (the only hummer that lives in the northeast) hovering at each of the few remaining pink flowers on my honeysuckle.  She is tiny: they typically are only 3" long and weigh about 1/6 of an ounce, equivalent to a teaspoon of butter.  When hovering, they move their wings in a figure of eight motion, a little like a person treading water.  Amazingly, they do it 50 times a second, producing the humming sound.

On the afternoon ferry back to Provincetown, Susan spotted a group of dolphins playing in the wake of the boat.

September 4 Standing in the front porch, about to take Maddie out for her morning walk, I spotted a female ruby-throated hummingbird at the butterfly bush in my front garden.  The same one that was at the honeysuckle last night?

September 5 On the way to Provincetown, the ferry captain pointed out a whale but I didn't manage to see it.  

Walking along Commercial St. we saw sunflowers in the garden, including these rather unusual looking ones, imitating shag carpet from the 1970s.  Googling "shaggy sunflowers" I find similar ones that are called Orange Sun and Teddy Bear sunflowers.

September 7 We went for a walk in Truro with Ranger Nick of the National Park Service, through the woods and along to the Atlantic shore.  

Wonderful views of the coast.

One of the women on the hike found an earthstar, a type of fungus.

Wikipedia has this interesting tidbit, on their hygroscopic (absorbing water from the air) "petals":

"The fruiting bodies of several earthstars are hygroscopic: in dry weather the "petals" will dry and curl up around the soft spore sac, protecting it. In this state, often the whole fungus becomes detached from the ground and may roll around like a tumbleweed. Once mature, their exoperidium splits into a variable number of rays [the "petals"], which give Geastrum their visible star shape. The exoperidial rays are there to protect the endoperidial [central] body and orchestrate spore dispersal.^[8] In wetter weather, the "petals" moisten and uncurl; some even curl backward lifting the spore sac up. This allows rain or animals to hit the spore sac so, emitting spores when enough moisture is present for them to germinate and establish."

Pine cones disperse their seeds in a similar way.  Here's what one scientific paper has to say:

"The opening and closing of woody conifer cones, a phenomenon known in various taxa such as pines and cypresses, is also governed by a hygroscopic swelling/shrinking mechanism. On each pine cone, dozens of seed scales are arranged in a Fibonacci sequence³ and move as a passive reaction to changes in humidity, as dictated by their structural setup (i.e., their functional morphology)^4,5. Under wet conditions (which is unfavourable for wind dispersal), the pine scales are curved upwards, the cone is closed and the winged, airborne seeds are protected and hindered from being shed. Under dry conditions, however, the scales bend down and liberate the seeds, which subsequently fly away. Pine scales, as seen in longitudinal section, are constructed as functional bilayers with a highly swellable, lower sclereid layer (with cells which are ~20% longer in their wet state as compared to their dry state) and a considerably less swellable upper layer composed of sclerenchymatous strands embedded in a matrix of ‘brown tissue’^4,5,6,7. Based on the different swelling and shrinking properties of these tissues the scale reacts similarly to a bimetallic strip⁸, but responds to humidity changes instead of heat."

Poppinga, S., Nestle, N., Šandor, A. et al. Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones. Sci Rep 7, 40302 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40302

I once visited Thomas Speck, the senior author on the paper, at his lab in Freiburg, Germany, where he is the Director of the Botanical Garden.  His group is interested in engineering design inspired by plant biomechanics.  At one point, he was working on designing window shades based on the hygroscopic response of pine cones, so that the blinds self actuated depending on the humidity of the environment, opening in rainy, cloudy weather and closing in dry, sunny weather.

September 8  Went for a morning walk at the Wellfleet Audubon sanctuary.  Found this beautiful wild hibiscus near a stream.

I always love the views of the marsh and beach here; we saw a group of 4 great blue herons near the water.

The diamondback terrapins have hatched; here's one on display in an aquarium at the visitor center. They live in brackish water near the coast, ranging from Florida to Cape Cod. As adults, they get to 4-7" long, much shorter than the huge snapping turtles that I see around the Emerald Necklace.

Sunset at Herring Cove beach, near the point at which Massachusetts Bay meets up with the Atlantic, looking over the bay towards Plymouth. 

September 9 After noticing a few mushrooms on our walks, we met up with Susan's friend, Karen, in Truro to go mushrooming, walking along footpaths through the woods in the National Seashore. I was surprised to see just how many different mushrooms we spotted.  Just as I was surprised to find out how many types of wintering ducks there are in the Massachusetts/Rhode Island area when I started birding. It was like "Oh, really, all these gorgeous ducks have been here all along and I never noticed?" 

A few of the mushrooms we saw.

Nearly full moon, wonderful light reflecting on the water.

September 10 Sitting out on the deck, saw this bug with ridiculously long antennae, about one and a half times its body length.  I wondered if they're awkward in flight? Or if they retract somehow?

September 13 Back in Jamaica Plain, walking Maddie in the morning, saw a cormorant sleeping on the gunnel of a rowboat by the boat house, its sinuous neck draped over its body, its head tucked in.  It seemed odd to me; I've never seen one dozing like this before.

On the way home, a hawk landed high up on a tree right next to Maddie and me and stayed there as we stopped to look at it and then walked past. Cool to see it perched there, up close.

On our afternoon walk, after a morning rain, saw this holly with new, bright green leaves, looking particularly perky.

September 14  Walking Maddie this morning, noticed a dead cormorant lying in the water, just at the shore of the pond by the boathouse. Wondered if it was the one I saw sleeping yesterday; perhaps something was wrong with it.

September 16 Delighted by this fall display of gourds and pumpkins at Allandale Farm, a local farmstand/gardening center in JP/Brookline. I especially liked the appropriately named snake gourds at the front, all curvy.

I've been seeing monarch butterflies fluttering around the neighborhood on my walks with Maddie.

September 17 Susan and I walked along the Emerald Necklace, past Jamaica Pond, Ward's Pond and Leverett Pond this morning.  With this summer's drought, the ponds are all low and the little waterfall between Jamaica Pond and Ward's Pond was completely dry.

My department had its annual faculty social this afternoon. This is what materials scientists do with dessert: brownies in the pattern of the periodic table.

And the three cakes above the brownies are to celebrate the three faculty who got tenure this year: Cem Tasan, represented by Ta for tantalum on the left; Jim LeBeau, represented by Be for beryllium in the center; and Rob Macfarlane, represented by Rb for rubidium on the right.  And of course each of the cakes is complete with icing atomic number and weight. The position of each of these three elements in the brownie periodic table is noted with a flag.  My colleague in the photo, Krystyn Van Vliet, baked it all.  

Not to be outdone, another colleague, Frances Ross, produced a cookie Penrose tiling by 3D printing cookie cutters with the appropriate shapes and using a dough that retains its shape on baking.

September 19 Walking Maddie early in the morning near Susan's condo in Cambridge, I spotted these mushrooms which Susan later told me were oyster mushrooms!

September 21  We began the day with a hike with Ranger Nick, starting at Long Pond in Wellfleet and working our way past several other ponds to the ocean. The Wellfleet ponds are kettle ponds that formed in depressions left by glaciers that are low enough to intersect the water table. Jamaica Pond, too, is a kettle pond. Other ponds on the Cape were formed from depressions made by the wind sculpting dunes, again at least partially below the water table.  Amazingly, Nick said that there were nearly 1000 ponds on Cape Cod!   Going through the woods, the huckleberry leaves were starting to turn red; in a couple of weeks, they'll become a red carpet beneath the trees.

Long Pond, Wellfleet

Feeling the need for a bit more walking, we headed through Wellfleet towards Great Island and stopped at a new conservation area along the Herring River.  

Walking through the woods, we saw bearberry bushes with their bright red berries and bayberry bushes with their silvery grey berries.

Stopping for lunch at a fish place on the harbor, we spotted a van for Best Bees: Beekeeping Services, with the back window full of bees crawling over it.  The people driving the van told me there was a barrier separating them from the bees in the back.

Ranger Nick mentioned that people have been seeing whales from the shore at the Provincetown Visitor Center, so we drove over there next. And were not disappointed!  With binoculars, we could see lots of whales: whales spouting, whales arching up and bending over, tails vertical before disappearing under the water. And one whale was "lobtailing", repeatedly lifting its tail out of the water and splashing it down (the link has a video).  At one point, using its fin instead of its tail to splash. At first we thought it might be in distress, but when we ran into Ranger Nick inside the visitor center, he explained that they do it deliberately, to break up and prey on bait balls, huge, densely packed balls of small schooling fish.  

September 22 Sunrise this morning, before a big storm coming later this afternoon.

Went back to the visitor center to look for more whales. One of the rangers said one had just breached. Missed that, but we did see one lobtailing by the Coast Guard station at Race Point.  More spouts and glimpses of their backs. Less activity than yesterday.

This evening, at the end of today's storm, a beautiful double rainbow. At one point, its right side was even reflected in the water.

September 23  Walked along the Pilgrim Spring trail in Truro, to the point where it is thought that the Pilgrims, in November of 1620, first found fresh water in the area.  On the way back, we spotted an SUV parked at the side of the road, the back hatch open, baskets of huge mushrooms inside.  Possibly growing after yesterday's rain.  Susan said we needed to go to her "secret" spot, and off we went.  First, we noticed wild cranberries growing in a depression between sand dunes, which I thought was pretty cool.

And then we started seeing mushrooms - a few different types, white caps, yellow caps, peachy caps, some pushing pine needles up out of the way to reach the surface. 

And here's our final haul, a few pounds of wild boletes which we used in a delicious mushroom risotto that night.

September 24  Waves of hundreds of birds flying along the shore, past the condo this morning. Swallow sized, white underbelly, dark back but hard to identify, they were darting about so much.  I first saw them going by the condo, a few a minute. But going over to the outer deck, looking down the shore, I realized that there was a steady stream of them. At first I thought they were tree swallows, but checking Cornell's bird migration dashboard, I see that it's more likely that they're blackpoll warblers. So cool to see them (perhaps), as they have the longest nonstop overwater migration (1800 miles) of any songbird: from Quebec and Nova Scotia to the Caribbean and northern South America. And they weigh just under half an ounce, equivalent to a tablespoon of butter.

September 25 Back in Boston, we went for a long walk at the Arboretum this morning. First stop: the Hunnewell visitor center, to see the visiting Caterpillar Lab.  I didn't have high hopes for this, but was happily proved wrong.

The highlight was watching a caterpillar molt its skin through a microscope, with the image displayed on a monitor.  The black skin first separates from the head

 

and then 2 front green legs emerge 

and then 2 antennae, on top of the body

 and then, most amazingly, it rubs off its old black head (on the left), leaving its new green one.

All of this took about 5 minutes.  Pretty amazing!  It then gradually emerges from the remaining dead outer skin. They also had lots of plants on tables around the edge of a lecture room, each with a different type of caterpillar, some huge and obvious, others incredibly well camouflaged and hidden.

Walking down the main drive, we saw a patch of autumn crocuses, which we discovered are not actually related to the crocuses we see in the spring.

Heading up the lilac hill, we reached another path and saw Northern flickers: at first a few on the ground, then one or two in the low branches of nearby shrubs, then more on the ground up ahead, perhaps a dozen in all. I can't remember ever seeing so many at one time; fun to see them all together. And they were pretty tolerant of us approaching, not flying off until we got within about 15 feet of them.

Back on the main drive, heading down Valley Road towards the South Street gate, we headed to the spot where Jeannie and I got married, by the Canadian hemlock along the rhododendron path.  After Jeannie passed away, Ned Friedman, the Director of the Arb, kindly offered to memorialize a tree for Jeannie, and I asked that it be this Canadian Hemlock, marked by one of the copper nameplates the Arb uses for all its trees, with this embossed on it:

"In memory of Jeannie Hess who shared her love of nature with her beloved wife Lorna Gibson. Here, where they were married, they basked in the glow of their good fortune to be together and of the beauty of this place."

After thinking of Jeannie for a bit, I noticed some unusual mushrooms growing at the base of the tree

Susan identified them as stinkhorn mushrooms. I'm amused by what the Wisconsin Horticulture Division of Extension has to say about them: "These visually-shocking fungi get their common name from their characteristic, unpleasant odor."

On our way back, we stopped at the golden rain trees near the Leventritt garden again, with their lanterns now turning pink.

 

Reading from the anthology, Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year, I find this quote on seeing nature from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882):

"The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood....In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.... Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a cloudy sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration... In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth."