Mid-August

 

An eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly on wild bergamot. Click to enlarge.

                           

   “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” 

                                                                                                       – Rabindranath Tagore

These are the Dog Days

 

And this is a dog day cicada. It appeared on my porch this morning, right on schedule. I heard cicadas singing in the trees last night for the first time this year. Click to enlarge.

The so-called dog days extend from July 3 to August 11. During this time, the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog, rises at about the same time as the sun. It gets blamed for the hot muggy weather of the hottest part of summer. There are several kinds of dog day cicadas across North America that emerge in late summer during the dog days and get their common name from it. 

This time of year you won't see any flashy red-eyed cicadas like this, though. It's one of several species of periodical cicada that are famous for explosivele emergences on 13 or 17 year schedules. They only come out is spring, and not annually. But... dog day cicadas are on the job every year. 

Summer Sights

 

Just pictures of summer today. Here is an inviting path under blue sky with a fleet of clouds coming in. Click to enlarge. 

A micro world of turkey tail mushrooms, lichens, and moss. 

A painted turtle with a white water lily. 

Light shining through the bristly fringe of a resting robber fly. 

The big snapping turtle swiming in green water. 

Snapping turtle's face.  

A bumblebee on wild bergamot. 

A common whitetail dragonfly on the ground. 

And an orange sunset on the Delaware River. 

Sundew Flowers

 

I had a nice walk this week in the relative cool snap. This is the view from my favorite picnic spot at Franklin Parker Preserve in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. See that floating log in the lower right foreground? Click to enlarge. 

There were many such logs. Note the pretty red fringe along the top. It's sundew plants. They are among the famous carnivorous plants of the region. Their red leaves are covered with droplets of sticky fluid that trap insects. The plant digests them and incorporates their nutrients. It helps the plants get by in nutrient-poor soils. Sundews have made a career out of it.  

Right now they are flowering. That poses a small dilemma. How does a sticky insect-trapping plant avoid trapping an insect that it hopes will take some pollen and fly away to pollinate another plant's flower? They just grow long stems, stems that hold the flowers high above the traps. See the white flowers way up over the bushy red mass? Each stem ends in a flower and is lined with buds that will bloom sequentially. That's a great solution, you tricky plants! 

Tomatoes are Ripe and Ready

 

This year I planted full-sized tomatoes in my yard. I’ve grown cherry tomatoes before, but I’ve never tried the big ones. Yet, here I am in New Jersey, which is renowned for its tomatoes. The Campbell Soup Company started right here in Camden with ready-to-eat beefsteak tomato soup in a can in 1895. My tomatoes started to turn red this week. Above is the first one I picked. Click to enlarge. 

It was red right through and absolutely delicious. 

It starred in a classic sandwich with mayo, salt, and pepper. I am looking forward to many more this summer. Life is good!

Now I've got my eyes on this one. Coming along. Ready soon. Yum. 

Nuthatch Finds a Morsel

Here's a white-breasted nuthatch. They are common visitors to bird feeders throughout North America. I often see one pick up a seed, fly to a tree, cache the seed in a crevice, and then fly back for more. They also eat insects when they can find them. And they have a quirky way of walking headfirst down trees. 

Found something! Click to enlarge. 

I can't tell what it is, but it looks larval. Good foraging, nuthatch! 

Here's another white-breasted nuthatch striking a more noble pose. Note the cute slightly upturned beak and the pretty red feathers below. 

Happy Independence Day!

Have a great weekend! 

 

Wait.. that's not a black skimmer

 

THIS is what black skimmers look like. Sleek, black and white, big black and red beak. 

Along the coast of South Jersey there are places set aside for them to nest. The sign says the area is closed so endangered birds can nest: plovers, least terns, and black skimmers. 

I was down the shore last week, walking past one of these areas on the beach, and I saw this from a distance. The bird at the right rear is sitting on a nest, a simple depression scraped in the sand. 

But it wasn't a black skimmer at all. This is an American oystercatcher. I absolutely mistook it for the skimmer I expected to see. In my defense, it's black and white with a big attention getting beak. It's not endangered, but is considered to be "of special concern" because of its low numbers and its vulnerability to habitat loss and human disturbance. 

It seems able to recognize a good nesting spot when it sees one, though, even if its name is not on the signs. Click to enlarge.  

Happy Father's Day

 

Here is a male house finch for the occasion. Click to enlarge. 

Linden Trees are Flowering

 

This is a view up through the leaves of the linden tree in front of my house. It is covered with flowers that smell like honey and lime. Click to enlarge.

Linden blossom begin to open in June and continue through mid-July. It's a big biological event that brings so many bees that the trees seem to hum. Linden are sometimes called "bee trees." Quieter insects are chewing lacy holes in the leaves. Look at the first picture again. See the light shining through all the little holes?

Linden blossoms. One of the nicest things about June. 

A Little Groundhog

 

While walking in my quiet suburban south jersey town this week, I passed this immature groundhog. Adorable, right? There are lots of groundhogs in town. They breed in spring, and by now the year's babies are old enough to sit outside near their burrows. This one was basking on the sunny edge of the sidewalk. Click to enlarge. And, by the way... 

 

Do you know how a groundhog remembers how many trees it has chewed? It keeps a log. 

And ... Do you know what a French groundhog sees on February 2? Its château...  

This reminds me of a groundhog that drank invisible ink.

I hear he's still at the vet's waiting to be seen. 

Welcome to the neighborhood, little groundhog. 

A Bluebird!

 

I saw this eastern bluebird today. Click to enlarge. It is easy to see why Henry David Thoreau said "The bluebird carries the sky on his back," right? It also seems to obey traffic signs... 

Memorial Day 2026

 

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them."

 

from For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon

Yellow Lady's Slipper Orchids

 

Every spring I make a pilgrimage into the New Jersey Pine Barrens to see pink lady's slipper orchids. It took a walk in the hardwood forest around New Hope, Pennsylvania, to find yellow ones. Click to enlage.

These are the first wild yellow lady's slippers I've ever seen. They are not just a yellow version of pink lady's slippers; they are a different species. 

Aside from the color difference, they grow in different settings. The pink ones prefer dry, acidic habitats like pine forests. Yellow lady's slippers are found in richer, moist hardwood forest understories. Note the long spirally twisted lateral petals. And the puffy pouch. Folklore says that squirrels wear lady slipper orchids for shoes. The bunch I found had exactly four blossoms -- a perfect set. 

Brown-headed Cowbird

 

A male brown-headed cowbird. It's famous for something it does not do... build nests. Female cowbirds lay eggs in the nests of other birds -- over 200 have been documented. Those other birds end up raising cowbird chicks with their own broods. I've seen small birds feeding chicks larger than themselves -- cowbirds.  

Brown-headed cowbirds are historically associated with buffalo herds. Traveling herds kick up insects and flatten tall grass revealing seeds, and both help the birds find a meal. These days cows and horses are more likely than buffalo, but the birds don't really need them. I saw this one in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, far from grassy fields of grazing mammals. Click to enlarge.

Pink Lady's Slippers

Pink lady slipper orchids are blooming in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Click to enlarge. 

I made my annual pilgrimage this week to see them, but arrived a few days early. They were up but not yet proudly displaying their pink pouches. 

Just cute, green, baby lady slippers. I went back later in the week...

And look at them now! The pink lady slipper is a lovely wild orchid native to the Eastern United States and among the earliest blooming NJ Pine Barres orchids. 

 They take a long time to grow from seed to flower and require special conditions that include a relationship with soil fungus. Once established, they bloom yearly and may live for 20 years. 

Another Nice Walk in the Woods

 

I saw two wonderful things while walking in a mature hardwood forest in central NJ this week. The big pileated woodpecker pictured above was calling loudly and pecking insects off a fallen log. Pileated woodpeckers can be about 20 inches long with a wingspan of more than two feet! It was one big woodpecker! Click to enlarge. 

Then this! It's a jack-in-the-pulpit. A shade specialist and very exciting to stumble across.  

From a 19th century poem by Clara Smith: 

"Jack-in-the-pulpit preaches today,

under the green trees just over the way."