The annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage

One of my favorite spring wildflowers, the Pink Lady's-slipper, makes an appearance during the annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage. Its a beautiful orchid.

It's always a good time to think ahead to spring. Please consider joining us for the next annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage, the first weekend after Memorial Day, in Allegany State Park, New York. It seems like 48 hours of nearly-nonstop field trips and programs, but they're spread over three days with breaks to eat and sleep. There are early-morning bird walks and bird-banding demonstrations, mid-morning walks and trips, afternoon walks, (or a choice of two all-day trips on Saturday if you prefer), evening walks (beaver and salamanders in the past), evening tent programs with a speaker on Friday and Saturday, followed by after-program frogs, insects and owling. Friday has afternoon and evening walks and events, while Sunday has the morning portion. If I'm not making much sense, just check out their schedule. The new Program Descriptions list was just finalized, and there's a nature walk for every taste, from birds to geology, wildflowers to trees, fields to forests, insects to herps, a bog slog and even specialized programs on photography, dragonflies, bats and beavers. For die-hard birders, there are birding trips from early morning to late into the night plus live birds-of-prey.

Allegany State Park is between Jamestown and Olean in southwestern New York State, next to the Pennsylvania border.

For more on the Pink Lady's-slipper, see my Adirondack blog post. Corrections, questions and suggestions are always welcome at northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com or connect through my Facebook page and photo page. There is a separate community-type page for The Northeast Naturalist.

Shagbark Hickory

emerging hickory leaves can sometimes resemble praying hands

 © Dave Spier

A week of warm weather has created a green paradise in the northern Finger Lakes region of New York. Among the many transformed deciduous trees, the Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) leaves have emerged. When the giant bud scales first peeled open, the "fingers" of miniature leaves resembled "praying hands." Once fully opened, the hickory's feather-compound leaves become distinctive. There are five (sometimes seven) leaflets with four opposite and one at the tip. The smallest are the inner, the middle pair are larger and the terminal leaflet is the largest. All are toothed and long-pointed. By the time it's done growing, a compound leaf can reach over a foot in length.

young hickory leaves unfolded and growing



hickory flowers are wind pollinated

Shagbarks, aptly named for the long, peeling shreds of bark, can easily grow to a height of 60 to 90 feet. The record is 120 feet. The wood is strong and elastic and was once prized for tool handles, gunstocks, skis and chair backs. When burned, it gives off a lot of heat and makes high-grade charcoal.

Shagbark Hickory bark

In late summer and early fall, the thick-walled nut husks split into four sections and release the four-ridged nuts which are good to eat. (Squirrels, possums, Wild Turkeys and Wood Ducks would agree.) The nuts also can be ground in a meal-like flour or crushed and boiled to separate the oil. Rabbits and deer browse the twigs. In late winter, the trunks can be tapped in the manner of collecting maple sap.

child holding hickory nuts, some with the husk on (Bayberry Environmental Education Center, Junius, NY, when I was a naturalist there)

Hickories are related to walnuts and butternuts (Juglans spp.) which have numerous leaflets, all roughly the same size. All these trees are in the same family (Juglandaceae) along with pecans.

Corrections, comments and questions are always welcome at northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com or connect through my Facebook page and photo page. There's also a community-type page for The Northeast Naturalist. Other nature and geology topics can be found on the parallel blogs Adirondack Naturalist and Heading Out.

Little Red Bugs

 

 

 

Little Red Bugs - © Dave Spier

Do you have little red bugs in your yard? Multiple clusters of 10 to 20 or so, hundreds all together, are crawling around the maple leaves that blew up against our garden fence last fall. I left the dead leaves there as mulch to control the weeds. Among the leaves are skeletonized maple seeds and the tiny bugs seem to be sucking some sort of nourishment from the seemingly dead and dried samaras (the botanical name for these winged seeds).

Closer examination of these insects with red abdomens (actually red with some bright-orange markings) reveals darker wing pads beginning to grow backwards from the shoulders. Small heads look back at me through dull red eyes. Long antennae could be mistaken for a fourth pair of legs. These are the nymphs of the Eastern Boxelder Bug, Boisea trivittata, (syn. Leptocoris trivittatus), a member of the Order Hemiptera, or True Bugs. After several more molts, each successively larger, the immature nymphs will transform into flying adults about a half-inch long. Most of the red color is lost, save for a few red edges on the forewings and three red lines on the thorax just behind the head. They are named for their favorite food, the seeds of Boxelder trees, also known as ash-leaved maples, a reference to the compound, opposite leaves reminiscent of the unrelated ash tree. Perhaps they can't tell the difference because Boxelder Bugs sometimes also feed on ash and, occasionally, a variety of other plants and fruits.

In the fall, adult Boxelder Bugs become a nuisance by inviting themselves into the warm, cozy interiors of our homes. The first sign of trouble may be swarms of the bugs on sunny exterior walls. From there they find tiny cracks through siding or past windows and under doors. The good news is they do not sting, transmit disease, damage structures, destroy fabrics, infest food or carry filth. When spring arrives, they leave in order to lay their eggs on Boxelder trees or other suitable venues which seem to have included the maple-leaf litter along my fence, although I do have a Boxelder tree on the northeast corner of the property some distance from the fence, and fortunately far from the house. Incubation of the eggs takes about two weeks and then "voila!" Swarms of little red bugs begin milling about.

In early July, we were also dealing with Squash Bugs, Squash Vine Borers, Three-lined Potato Beetles, White Cabbage Butterflies and Japanese Beetles as well as deer (I'm guessing) eating broccoli leaves. So far, the garden fence is rabbit and woodchuck proof and I think we found a good deer repellent now.

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photo notes: exposure was 1/200 sec. at f/13 using the Canon MP-E 65mm (1-5x, but actual magnification not recorded) with twin macro flash on a digital Rebel (6 mp)
 

This was written from a New York perspective (specifically the northern Finger Lakes region). Corrections, comments and questions are always welcome at northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com or connect through my Facebook page and photo page. There's also a community-type page for The Northeast Naturalist. Other nature and geology topics can be found on the parallel blogs Adirondack Naturalist and Heading Out.

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(The original copyrighted article and photo [taken June 29] first appeared in the Times of Wayne County, July 7, 2008. All rights reserved.)