Otsego Lake
It was a beautiful day for a meeting with friends on Otsego Lake.
2007 Almost Summer at Rose Cottage
The first herbaceous peony.
Earliest Oriental poppy.
Double peony with Dames’ Rocket.
This year we encouraged wild phlox, also called Dames’ Rocket.
The tree frog overlooks the rivulet, which became a waterfall in last year’s flood.
Rhododendron in woodland bank.
Columbine and allium in the upper garden.
Rusty frog in the Lady’s Mantle.
The fern path.
Green frog in our pond.
Fiddlehead in our woods.
Basswood Pond State Forest
Beginning of the trail.
The local Audubon chapter sponsored a bird walk through Basswood Pond State Forest, this morning, led by accomplished bird expert, Tom Salo.
Some of the birds we encountered and identified either by song or appearance were the winter wren (beautiful and complex 20 second song), the ovenbird, Tennessee warbler, magnolia warbler, least flycatcher, olive-sided flycatcher (rare in these parts, an exciting find), juncos and nuthatches, Eastern wood peewees (identified by song), and woodpeckers. We visited the habitats of mergansers, wood ducks, Virginia rails, alder and willow flycatchers, but they eluded us.
Since we are new at birds and are used to looking at the ground to see interesting plants (and to keep from tripping), we did see the barely concealed ground nests of an ovenbird and a junco, both filled with eggs. We also spotted a large broken egg, probably belonging to a wild turkey. This was our first bird-watching walk. We learned that it is important to be as silent and unobtrusive as possible, to bring binoculars (we didn’t) and to bring a bird book.
A junco’s nest hidden in grass beside the trail.
The highlight for some of us was finding a pink ladyslipper orchid next to the trail.
Wild pink ladyslipper orchid.
One of the ponds in Basswood Pond State Forest
