I had nice, warm mittens on my Christmas list. Didn't get them. EMS doesn't sell any. REI doesn't sell any. L.L. Bean doesn't sell any. No one seems to sell them, so Santa struck out.
Well, today I found Urban Boundries. and I found some :-) Looks like I may be able to have warm fingers yet! See; http://www.urbanboundaries.com
Mittens vs. Gloves:
1) Gloves expose your fingers to cold on four sides. Gloves expose your fingers to gloves on only two sides.
2) Mittens allow you to make a fist and press your cold finger tips into your warm palms. Gloves don't.
3) Gloves provide more dexterity... so wear thin liner gloves under your mittens, fo those times you need to strip off the mittens and tie things, untie things, etc.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Update
Well, loading pictures and text here, as well as creating a written 'Scrapbook' has been overwhelming.
For pictures, usually with captions, see Chad Wolhers flicker account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwohlers/
He takes most of the pictures and posts them there.
I will try just posting 'words' here... with just an occasional picture.
Bob
For pictures, usually with captions, see Chad Wolhers flicker account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwohlers/
He takes most of the pictures and posts them there.
I will try just posting 'words' here... with just an occasional picture.
Bob
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A slightly delayed, but enjoyable, "Start"
Last evening we took our first "Monday Evening" Discovery walk. We say a lot of interesting things, some well known, some less so...
Just as we started out I noticed small yellow flowers mixed in with the grass. I laid down to see (I said they were small!), we dug out Newcomb's Wildflower Guide and... we had found Dwarf Cinquefoil http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=POCA17 (Photo: Thomas G. Barnes @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Barnes, T.G., and S.W. Francis. 2004. Wildflowers and ferns of Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky.)
We also saw a plant with leaves shaped like maple leaves, but it wasn't a Maple tree. Jerry thought it was "Maple-Leaved Viburnam", and checking our guidebooks showed he was right. (Photo: Joe Keogh - of another, taken on RLBH hike.)
In the swamppy area right next to Blue Hill River Road and Hillside St. there was a great load of skunk cabbage flourishing. Skunk Cabbage http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=LYAM3
We also saw both High Bush Blueberry http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=VACO and Low Bush Blueberry http://plants.usda.gov/java/nameSearch Based on what we saw, it looks like it may be a good year for bluwberries :-)
We also spent some time discussing and comparing birch trees, and a beech tree.
Birch: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=BETUL
Paper Birch http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=BEPAP
Gray Birch http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=BEPO
American Beech http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=FAGR
Life is easy when you can just say "Birch" and move on.. but becomes more interesting when you open the guide books and look at all the possible varieties of birch trees. My opinion is Gray Birch. While we might not score a perfect 100 on the ID test, we do have fun trying :-)
We also saw Pepperbush http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_clal3.pdf, although ours was not yet in bloom.
Note: Most of the above links and photos are from http://plants.usda.gov/ Check it out. It has information on many of the plants we see, and provides lots of good information. (Ref: USDA, NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 5 May 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.)
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Vernal Pools
Today I went to the Blue Hills and took part in an effort to certify a vernal pool. We also visited a previously certified vernal pool. What I didcovered is you have to know what you are looking for, and have good eyes, to see them! We saw spermataphores, so we knew that the male salamanders had come to the pond when it rained Thursday(?) night. We didn't see any egg masses, so it didn't seem the females had arrived yet. (Rain is due tomorrow night, so it should be a big night for amphibians.) We looked and looked, and finally someone saw a salamander moving on the bottom. Then a second one, which we managed to catch and put in a basin to take pictures. At the previously certified pool we also found fairy shrimp. We also saw a fingernail clam, damselfly nympth and many, many assorted small creatures.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Vernal Pools
Today was “Vernal Pool Training Day”
This morning I went to the Blue Hills for training in how to certify a vernal pool. It included information on the certification process, as well as information about the species that are Obligate or Facultative. {What is it about people that they feel a great need to use big words?}
Bottom line, Facultative species use vernal pools, but can get by without them, but an Obligate species is one that requires a vernal pool in order to survive and reproduce. So, if you find a Facultative species it might be a vernal pool. If you find an Obligate species, bingo, it is a certifiable “vernal pool.”
Which species require a vernal pool? Wood frogs; spotted, blue-spotted, Jefferson, and marbled salamanders; and fairy shrimp.
Wood frogs. These are a tan to brownish frog, with a black mask across their eyes.
The ‘spotted salamander’ has two rows of large yellow spots down it’s back, while the ‘blue-spotted’ salamander has lots of blue spots. The marbled salamander has white or grayish markings which may be like dots, or connect to form bars across it’s back. The Jefferson salamander, which mostly occurs in mid to western Mass, is a chocolate brown to gray color.
Fairy shrimp are small, ½ to 1½” long. They are orange to green crustaceans that live only in vernal pools. The interesting thing about these shrimp is that the eggs must dry, then be re-submerged to hatch. They can sit dormant and dry for up to 30 years, then hatch when immersed in water.
There is a process of observing these species in a pool, documenting their presence, and getting the vernal pool certified. Once certified as a vernal pool, the pool has some protections under Massachusetts law, which helps preserve them from damage. This in turn helps assure that these species can continue to live and breed within Massachusetts.
This certification of vernal pools is important, both in areas subject to development and areas we consider ‘safe’, such as our state parks. Within the Blue Hills documenting the vernal pools helps protect the park from development. While we don’t normally think of our state parks as sights for development, in fact the Blue Hills is currently fighting a battle with a developer who wants to use some of it’s land for a parking lot. Thus, certifying vernal pools, even within our state parks, is an important way to protect these special breeding places.
In March and April I’ll be going out in the Blue Hills and Cutler Park to help certify their vernal pools. More on those ‘field trips’ later.
This morning I went to the Blue Hills for training in how to certify a vernal pool. It included information on the certification process, as well as information about the species that are Obligate or Facultative. {What is it about people that they feel a great need to use big words?}
Bottom line, Facultative species use vernal pools, but can get by without them, but an Obligate species is one that requires a vernal pool in order to survive and reproduce. So, if you find a Facultative species it might be a vernal pool. If you find an Obligate species, bingo, it is a certifiable “vernal pool.”
Which species require a vernal pool? Wood frogs; spotted, blue-spotted, Jefferson, and marbled salamanders; and fairy shrimp.
Wood frogs. These are a tan to brownish frog, with a black mask across their eyes.
The ‘spotted salamander’ has two rows of large yellow spots down it’s back, while the ‘blue-spotted’ salamander has lots of blue spots. The marbled salamander has white or grayish markings which may be like dots, or connect to form bars across it’s back. The Jefferson salamander, which mostly occurs in mid to western Mass, is a chocolate brown to gray color.
Fairy shrimp are small, ½ to 1½” long. They are orange to green crustaceans that live only in vernal pools. The interesting thing about these shrimp is that the eggs must dry, then be re-submerged to hatch. They can sit dormant and dry for up to 30 years, then hatch when immersed in water.
There is a process of observing these species in a pool, documenting their presence, and getting the vernal pool certified. Once certified as a vernal pool, the pool has some protections under Massachusetts law, which helps preserve them from damage. This in turn helps assure that these species can continue to live and breed within Massachusetts.
This certification of vernal pools is important, both in areas subject to development and areas we consider ‘safe’, such as our state parks. Within the Blue Hills documenting the vernal pools helps protect the park from development. While we don’t normally think of our state parks as sights for development, in fact the Blue Hills is currently fighting a battle with a developer who wants to use some of it’s land for a parking lot. Thus, certifying vernal pools, even within our state parks, is an important way to protect these special breeding places.
In March and April I’ll be going out in the Blue Hills and Cutler Park to help certify their vernal pools. More on those ‘field trips’ later.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Trees - and how they came to be here…
I had always thought of the woods as static. I’d seen stone walls in the woods, and conceptually knew some of the woods had been cleared earlier, but it wasn’t until my ‘other’ hobby, collecting antique tools, brought me into contact with old maps of Easton that I realized that almost all of this area was clear cut in the mid-1800s. Part of it was to clear land for crops and grazing. Part was for wood to heat and raw materials to build. And some of it was for wood to make charcoal. Bottom line, by the mid-1800’s Easton was mostly ‘field’ with only small circles of trees… people’s woodlots.
I had heard about ‘old growth forest.’ Without really thinking about it I’d thought that meant ‘forever’… but forever isn’t as long (in geological time) as we might think. As I started to research trees I found that this wasn’t the first time that the trees had been cleared. The last glacier covered southern New England about 15,000 years ago. OK, that is a long time to you and I, but not compared to how long New England has been here. (More on that when we touch on rocks and geology later in the series.)
So, if there was a glacier here 15,000 years ago, how did we get from glacier to the trees we see today? And how do people know those answers? One way they know is by looking at the pollen that builds up in peat bogs. Every year pollen from the surrounding trees lands in the peat bogs. After thousands of years, scientists came along, took core samples of the peat, and counted the pollen in each layer. It turns out that different trees have different sized and shaped pollen, so they can count the different pollen, and estimate the makeup of the surrounding forests at the time the pollen fell. Pretty neat.
So here’s a ‘best guess’ of what happened in southern New England after the glacier receded 15,000 years ago. At first the area remained treeless for several thousand years after the glacier receded. Spruce trees reached Connecticut about 11,500 years ago. 1000 years later alder, fir and jack pine arrived. White Pine reached the area 9000 years ago. Shortly thereafter birch, maples, hemlocks and oaks arrived. Interestingly some of these trees migrated here from the south, others from the west. Once they came this direction oaks were a fast migrating tree, which doesn’t make intuitive sense, since they are slow growing and have heavy seeds which can’t be carried great distances by the wind. Squirrels carry and bury the acorns, but not usually very far.
American chestnut was one of the last species to arrive, reaching it’s northern limit only within the past 1000 years. But once here it became a dominant species in our woods. OK, so why don’t we see them now? Stay tuned for the next chapter…
Source:
Jorgensen, Neil. A Sierra Club Naturalist’s Guide Southern New England. Sierra Club Books: San Francisco, 1978, pp 56-62.
I had heard about ‘old growth forest.’ Without really thinking about it I’d thought that meant ‘forever’… but forever isn’t as long (in geological time) as we might think. As I started to research trees I found that this wasn’t the first time that the trees had been cleared. The last glacier covered southern New England about 15,000 years ago. OK, that is a long time to you and I, but not compared to how long New England has been here. (More on that when we touch on rocks and geology later in the series.)
So, if there was a glacier here 15,000 years ago, how did we get from glacier to the trees we see today? And how do people know those answers? One way they know is by looking at the pollen that builds up in peat bogs. Every year pollen from the surrounding trees lands in the peat bogs. After thousands of years, scientists came along, took core samples of the peat, and counted the pollen in each layer. It turns out that different trees have different sized and shaped pollen, so they can count the different pollen, and estimate the makeup of the surrounding forests at the time the pollen fell. Pretty neat.
So here’s a ‘best guess’ of what happened in southern New England after the glacier receded 15,000 years ago. At first the area remained treeless for several thousand years after the glacier receded. Spruce trees reached Connecticut about 11,500 years ago. 1000 years later alder, fir and jack pine arrived. White Pine reached the area 9000 years ago. Shortly thereafter birch, maples, hemlocks and oaks arrived. Interestingly some of these trees migrated here from the south, others from the west. Once they came this direction oaks were a fast migrating tree, which doesn’t make intuitive sense, since they are slow growing and have heavy seeds which can’t be carried great distances by the wind. Squirrels carry and bury the acorns, but not usually very far.
American chestnut was one of the last species to arrive, reaching it’s northern limit only within the past 1000 years. But once here it became a dominant species in our woods. OK, so why don’t we see them now? Stay tuned for the next chapter…
Source:
Jorgensen, Neil. A Sierra Club Naturalist’s Guide Southern New England. Sierra Club Books: San Francisco, 1978, pp 56-62.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Trip Report 2/21 - Highlights
While waiting for everyone to arrive we watched birds at the birdfeeder. Saw downy woodpecker, cardinal.
Then we started out identifying trees. White pine was easy, then beech and oak. We spent quite a while learning about the different oaks that grow around here. Found several leaves that looked like white, red and scarlet. Matching them to specific trees was 'interesting'. When this year's leaves come out we will see how we did.
Someone found an oak gall, which lead to some discussion, and further research after we got home. More on that later.
Next we had some discussion of "Princess" vs. "Prince's Pine". More research and more on that later also.
We saw some tracks. Kevin suggested possibly fisher. I checked "Tracking and the Art of Seeing" and they were close. Unfortunatelty they weren't new, and the snow wasn't fresh, so not the best individual prints. But the spacing and arrangement were close.
We also saw some birch trees... which led to learning about the assorted birches that occur around here. Sweet? Black? Yellow? White we knew definately once we saw it.
Shagbark hickory, atlantic white cedar, black cherry rounded out our native trees.
We also saw an apple and a weeping cherry, which were planted trees.
On the way back we passed the Ames boulder - a large glacial eratic. We will spend some time on rocks and minerals later, but for today we ended with a short 'quiet time' to sit, look and and think.
We enjoyed our start at becoming amateur naturalists, and plan to return in two weeks. :-)
Then we started out identifying trees. White pine was easy, then beech and oak. We spent quite a while learning about the different oaks that grow around here. Found several leaves that looked like white, red and scarlet. Matching them to specific trees was 'interesting'. When this year's leaves come out we will see how we did.
Someone found an oak gall, which lead to some discussion, and further research after we got home. More on that later.
Next we had some discussion of "Princess" vs. "Prince's Pine". More research and more on that later also.
We saw some tracks. Kevin suggested possibly fisher. I checked "Tracking and the Art of Seeing" and they were close. Unfortunatelty they weren't new, and the snow wasn't fresh, so not the best individual prints. But the spacing and arrangement were close.
We also saw some birch trees... which led to learning about the assorted birches that occur around here. Sweet? Black? Yellow? White we knew definately once we saw it.
Shagbark hickory, atlantic white cedar, black cherry rounded out our native trees.
We also saw an apple and a weeping cherry, which were planted trees.
On the way back we passed the Ames boulder - a large glacial eratic. We will spend some time on rocks and minerals later, but for today we ended with a short 'quiet time' to sit, look and and think.
We enjoyed our start at becoming amateur naturalists, and plan to return in two weeks. :-)
Monday, February 16, 2009
Discovering Nature trip 2/21
Discovering Nature
Saturday 2/21 afternoon. C4D
Are you jealous when your hiking companions point out different species of trees, because to you they are just 'Pine' and 'other'? Or what bird that was that flew by? Well, there is hope! Come join us as we "Discover Nature" at Borderland. We will examine trees, and try to identify them, before the leaves come out by examining the bark, leaf scars and other hints. We will also look for the birds that are around at this time. Maybe we will see some snow fleas, stoneflies or animal tracks. No prior knowledge required.We will all learn together. This will not be a lecture series! This is "Home Schooling for Adults." We will all learn together, by observing nature, studying nature guides and learning as we go. Registration required. Space limited. Please register by 2/19. Leader: Bob Vogel (hike_with_bob_v@comcast.net) 508-238-7732 (6-9 PM) CLs: Kevin Ryan; Ellen Correia
Note: This Saturday "Discovery" will be followed by other weekend trips, and a series of Monday Evening trips starting April 20th. (Participation in the Monday Series not required to participate in these weekend trips.) See the SEM Spring Breeze, or http://www.discoveringnature.blogspot.com/
Saturday 2/21 afternoon. C4D
Are you jealous when your hiking companions point out different species of trees, because to you they are just 'Pine' and 'other'? Or what bird that was that flew by? Well, there is hope! Come join us as we "Discover Nature" at Borderland. We will examine trees, and try to identify them, before the leaves come out by examining the bark, leaf scars and other hints. We will also look for the birds that are around at this time. Maybe we will see some snow fleas, stoneflies or animal tracks. No prior knowledge required.We will all learn together. This will not be a lecture series! This is "Home Schooling for Adults." We will all learn together, by observing nature, studying nature guides and learning as we go. Registration required. Space limited. Please register by 2/19. Leader: Bob Vogel (hike_with_bob_v@comcast.net) 508-238-7732 (6-9 PM) CLs: Kevin Ryan; Ellen Correia
Note: This Saturday "Discovery" will be followed by other weekend trips, and a series of Monday Evening trips starting April 20th. (Participation in the Monday Series not required to participate in these weekend trips.) See the SEM Spring Breeze, or http://www.discoveringnature.blogspot.com/
Saturday, January 24, 2009
White Tailed Deer
Out XC skiing at Borderland. I went in the Bay Circuit Trail entrance. No one had been there since the snowstorm last weekend... well except the deer. There were tracks everywhere. I saw two deer bounding through the woods.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Registration
Registration is not yet open for this series. This series will be offered through the Southeastern Massachusetts (SEM) Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). The series starts Monday April 20, 2009. Registration will open when the SEM Breeze is published, about March 1st.
Trip Listing
Are you jealous when your hiking companions point out different species of trees, because to you they are just 'Pine' and 'other'? Do you wish you knew the names of the pretty flowers you see when walking? Or what bird that was that flew by? Well, there is hope! Come join in this spring and summer as we "Discover Nature" on a series of (typically 6-8 P.M.) Monday evening walks at the Blue Hills, Borderland, and possibly other locations. No prior knowledge required. I'm not an expert either, we will all learn together. This series of discoveries will not be a lecture series! This is a "Home Schooling for Adults" series... We will all learn together, by observing nature, studying nature guides, keeping a notebook of our observations and learning as we go. Some weeks we will hike a modest distance, other weeks we might find we spend a lot of time in one small area. Naturalists are not 'born' knowing everything. There are many guidebooks and websites which can provide the information to learn. What's needed is to take this 'book learning' and go into the woods, to truly understand what we read. We will use an iterative approach. We will read about a subject, such as trees. Then go into the woods to observe them. Finally, during the following week, looking up what we observed to confirm, or correct, what we think we observed. If you are interested, register soon, as space is limited. Leader: Bob Vogel hike_with_bob_v@comcast.net
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