The Goldenrod Gall

 

Gall Time with Teale

Trail Wood #117 Earl Plato
Naturalist Edwin Way Teale was essentially a botanist. Many of his writings center around flora in nature. This late May entry is no exception.
“ On this late May morning, along the varied paths I follow, my pace is even slower. Everywhere in this time of new and tender leaves and plant growths, those variously formed and tinted swellings we call galls are enlarging and taking shape. … All galls produced by insects - and their varied forms number in the thousands - harbor larvae inside. Each starts in the same way. The abnormal plant growth is induced by an irritant introduced into the tissues when the eggs are laid or added as a byproduct of the life processes of he larva. Wide is the variety of the egg layers - flies, wasps, wasps, moths, aphids, beetles, sawflies, lace bugs, and gnats.
The spindle-shaped gall of the goldenrod shown has a mottled brown and gray moth about three-quarters of an inch in length.”

Slow Down!

Trail Wood #116 Earl Plato

At Marcy Woods some years ago I lead a small group of botanists from the Buffalo Museum of Science. We took them on the Upper Trail. This is a winding narrow path and more rigorous than the Lower Trail below us. Have you walked with keen botanists?. Every step was slow and methodical. They would often stop to examine a plant and a healthy debate might follow. What normally was an hour walk ended two and a half hours
edLater. Edwin Teale shared a similar recollection.
“ Years ago I talked with someone who had been a companion of John Muir’s walks in Yosemite Valley. His pace, I was told, was unhurried. Muir stopped often to enjoy a view or examine a tree. For ten or fifteen at a time he would sit down beside some favorite wild flower along the way. It might take him ten hours to walk ten miles.”
On my next nature walk I intend to slow down more and enjoy creation in May!

Nellie Tried

Trail Wood #115 Earl Plato

Nellie in her natural empathy tried to save a dying bird. We continue with Ed Teale’s record.
“A few minutes later as we come up the hill to the house, Nellie sloshing along in water-filled shoes and dripping dress, she relates the events that preceded what I had observed.
In a leisurely circuit of the pond, when she was drawing near the flay, tilted surface of Summerhouse Rock, a swirl of fighting grackles swept past her and out over the water. In the melee one of the black birds was borne down, driven lower and lower. Nellie saw it strike the surface with a splash, struggle with flailing wings but struggle in vain, unable to lift itself into the air again. At that time the floating bird was only five or six feet from the edge of the pond. Snatching up the first stick she could find, Nellie tried to reach out and pull it toward her. But a stiff wind carried the bird away. Second by second the gap widened as the helpless grackle drifted farther into the pond. As it continued its struggles Nellie followed until the bottom pitched steeply downward. But always the stick fell short of the ensnared bird. Its efforts grew weaker, then ceased entirely, and it floated lifelessly on the water.”
Ed, you have good wife. How much empathy do we have for injured animals?

Trail Wood pond and Nellie's episode

 

forgot this photo

 

Nellie in deep water at the pond.

Trail Wood # 114 Earl Plato
Do you really know your spouse? Ed Teale in late May sees his wife, Nellie, do something unusual at their pond. We have stood there at the edge of the water. I can picture the scenario. Teale wrote:
“I have glanced down the hill toward the pond. What I see is the most incredible sight I have encountered at Trail Wood. Near Summerhouse Rock Nellie, fully clothed, is wading out into the deeper water of the pond. Already she is a dozen feet from the shore. There the water is week above her hips, For a moment I stare incredulously. Then I shout. Nellie looks up but continues her advance. I sprint down the slope. As I run I observe that she has a stick in one hand and reaching out as far as she can. She is pawing the surface of the water. When I am pounding along the path at the pond’s edge I catch sight of a black object floating on the surface just beyond the reach of her stick.”
What is Nellie after? Next: As a lover of nature Nellie Teale tries her best.

Which Month?

Wood #113 Earl Plato

Edwin Way Teale had two favorite months - May and June. This is what he said about them.
“ Here at Trail Wood there is always a tug=of-war between two months - May and October. Which brings the finest hours of the year? On some mid-October day when we stand in the sunshine breathing in the crisp air of fall surrounded by the glory of the fall foliage. I am sure we will vote for the tenth month of the year, But tonight watching these first fireflies, listening to the lone whip-poor-will in the darkness, savoring all the late May scents carried on the breeze, remembering the bird song and the wild flowers of the day. We have no doubts these are the best hours. These are the beat days. The minutes of very weeks e are living in, the hours and days of this fifth month are merging together into what - it seems to us now - surely must be the finest of all.”
Living in the Niagara peninsula I agree with the Teale’s concerning May.

Whip-poorwill

 

Whip-poor-will Time

Trail Wood #112 Earl Plato

Have you heard the plaintive call of a whip-poor-will? Ed Teale wrote May 24th.
“ Far away, somewhere off toward the hill pastures of another farm to the north a whip-poor-will begins its calling.”

Edwin Teale

 

Firefly Trail Wood

 

Let There Be Light!

Trail Wood #111 Earl Plato

We grew up with fireflies. Our quest at that time of year, late May, was to capture one and place it in a bottle and observe them. Then we would release them. Teale in his May 24th log wrote:
“ Walking in the deepening darkness this evening glimpse the first fireflies of the year - two sparks of light brightening then fading then brightening again. We watch them go drifting away low above the night-clad slope of Firefly Meadow, Their wandering airborne little lanterns mark the commencement of a new era of the spring.
On his evening a soft, faint breeze flows idly out of the south. It is filled with the fragrances of May collected mile after mile from flower and stream, from new leaves and crushed grass, from all the host of growing things that have unfolded, expanded, and added their particular scents to he air at dusk.”

Apple Blossom Time May

 

Blossom Time

Trail Wood #110 Earl Plato

It’s blossom time in Niagara this week. Apple, peach. And cherry are in full bloom. So it was in Trail Wood those many ears ago.
“Here downwind from an old apple tree I check my walk in the midst of a shower of blossoms. Petals stream toward me, swirl around me, scud past me. They unroll in a thin carpet of white over the green of the grass.
For a week now fruit bearing trees along the walls and near the brook and scattered through the woods - chokecherries and wild plums and seedling apple trees - have reached the the height of their blooming. One lone pear tree living out its life rooted close beside te north wall has lifted in a towering, foaming fountain of white. Rounded apple trees, remnants of an earlier orchard, transforming from glossy green to shining pink-tinged white, rise in billowing clouds of blossoms.”

May in Marcy Woods

 

Spotted salamander

 

Salamanders

Trail Wood #109 Earl Plato

Edwin May Teale and wife, Nellie, headed home to their cottage. It was still May.
“ Later on in slow motion in the heat at the end of the day we follow he curve of the pond on the way home. Thunder, still far away, rolls and mutters along the western horizon. Halfway down Azalea Shore where slippage from a small spring has collected into a shallow pool three or four feet across we bend down to examine a whitish mass of salamander eggs, probably those of the common spotted salamander. The cluster suggests a smooth rounded piece of ice spongy with air.
Our last stop before climbing the slope to the house is beside Driftwood Cove. The toads are still trilling but now singly, scattered.”

Hemlocks in Danger?

Trail Wood #108 Earl Plato
How many Eastern hemlocks are there in Trail Wood sanctuary? I don’t know but there is a Hemlock Glen there. Teale mentions it but doesn’t say too much about this evergreen. However, we are concerned about the many hemlocks found in Marcy’s Woods. On May 15th we lead Sarah Leone, Plant protection inspector scientist, into Marcy’s Woods to look for an important pest of hemlock trees, the Hemlock Wooley Adelgid. Daughter Allison and I had already looked for the tell tale cottony white egg sacs at he end of branches. We found none but we are not scientists. Why so serious? The small aphid-like insects, the Wooly adelgid sucks sap from the needles. For most of its life it is covered by a white, woolly substance that it secretes over its body. They feed primarily on young branches causing cessation of growth. There is a discoloration and premature dropping of needles, the dieback of branches and possible death of the tree in little as one year! Infestation has been found outside of Rochester, New York. That’s not far away - 160 km - 100 miles. We need the least-toxic control when it arrives. Check your home hemlocks.

The Last Two Stops

Trail Wood #107 Earl Plato

The last two stops at Trail Wood - Stops 6 & 7.
“Stop 6. In the yard below the terrace one of our cottontails nibbles tender new grass, washed by rain in the night. I watch it nip off a blade and chew rapidly beginning at the lower end. He blade grows shorter and shorter until the tip disappears. A blue jay flies into the apple tree with a raucous note of alarm. I notice how the rabbit instantly sits up, its head held high, looking around and ready to leap. It is an animal tuned in on all the warning sounds around it.
Stop 7. One last pause before I come indoors, a pause to watch a white-breasted nuthatch at a feeder still stocked with sunflower seeds. I see it pick up a seed, discard it, pick up another seed and discard it. I begin counting. It discards twenty-eight seeds before it chooses one to its liking and flies away.
The Walk of the Seven Stops. On every trip afield it is the halts, the pauses, the moments when activity ceases that mark encounters of special interest.”
Writer’s note: Do you get Teale’s message? Slow down and observe what is around you on your next walk.

soaring red-shouldered

 

Stops 4 & 5 Trail Wood

Trail Wood #106 Earl Plato

We continue on with Teale’s Stops 4&5

“ Stop 4. Out in the meadow I look up. High above two red-shouldered hawks spin in an updraft. Just as I gt my glasses focused on obe of the soaring birds, it sweeps back its wings, tilts steeply downward and like an arrowhead it streaks in a long plunge toward the earth. I follow it down and down. I see it near the ground, open its wings, check its descent and begin climbing upward again. A hawk sporting in the air of spring.
Stop 5. Another hawk one of the broad-wings goes beating across the field low above me. Looking up again through the round, magnifying windows of mt binoculars I see it as it passes by give a little flutter to its tail as though it had been bitten by a parasite.”
Next: Stops 6 & 7.

Tuffted titmouse stop2

 

Stops 2&3

Trail Wood #105 Earl Plato

Stops 2 & 3 at Trail Wood, May 9th
“ Stop 2. The beech leaves are off their twigs at last. All winter on this sapling tree beside the rail the pale, tan flags of the slender, last year’s foliage have fluttered in the wind. Now the swelling of he buds has loosened their grip upon the twigs.
Stop 3. At the edge of the woods I pause to listen to the clear call of a little tufted titmouse. It is repeated endlessly. The sound comes to my ear with small variations. Sometimes it is “Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!” Sometimes “Chew! Chew! Chew!” sometimes “Hear! Hear! Hear!” At other times it is more nearly like Year! Tear! Year!” In whatever form it arrives, it rings out among all the bird sounds around me. I remember an experienced field ornithologist who once told me he had found that he saw
forty-five percent of all species he would encounter on a given day in spring during his first hour.”
Next Stops 4 & 5.

Seven Stops - stop Oner

Trail Wood #104 Earl Plato
For almost twenty years I wrote a weekly nature column for the Niagara Falls Review. Edwin Teale’s writings were often my inspiration. In a May 9th log he told of seven stops in Trail Wood. Some years back I wrote of seven steps in beautiful Marcy Woods one May day. Here is the first part of Ed Teale’s offering entitled “ The Walk of Seven Stops.”
Stop 1, I stoop to tie my shoelaces on a woodland trail and in consequence see something I otherwise would have missed. It is a small cushion of shaggy moss grow on decaying wood. The leaves all turned to one side suggest scythes or brushes. Children have fancied they resemble duck heads or soldiers with lances marching to war. The common name for the primitive plant is Broom moss. Its scientific name is Diorama solarium. “
Next - Steps 2 & 3

Love those Broad-wings

Trail Wood #103 Earl Plato

Edwin and Nellie Teale were fascinated with their resident broad-wings. We read on.
“ Some days ago our broad-wings came home, home to their old nesting area in a secluded part of Seven Springs Slope in the South Woods. Home from South America after a round trip of thousands of miles over land and water. Since then the woods have echoed with the “whee-ooou” of their mating call repeated in the air from perch to perch. Before long we will see at the high fork of some maple tree a stick nest growing in size. To it the birds will add at intervals twigs and small branches with he green foliage still attached. In the weeks that follow we will encounter the mated birds “frogging” along the brooks and hunting for chipmunks in the woods. We will see them searching for prey on the wing or perched motionless on a lower limb. They peer downward for some slight sign of movement below.”

Broad-winged our smallest Buteo - crow-sized

 

The Broad-wings

We will see them searching for prey on the wing or perched motionless on the lower limb of a tree peering downward for some slight sign of movement below.”

Nuptial flight

 

Nuptial Flight at Trail Wood

Trail Wood #101 Earl Plato

It’s May - mating time in nature.
Naturalist described in his May 7th log an aerial , nuptial flight of broad-winged hawks.
“ In swift, tight circles the pair of broad-winged hawks mounts in the sky over Monument Pasture. We watch the soaring birds grow smaller as they climb. We hear the shrill feeding whistled piping of their calls. We see the pair pass and repass. We see them make dives and swerves that are parried by instantaneous tilts and veers. Unaware of passing time Nellie and I stand gazing up at this sky borne exhibition of he wild ecstasy of nuptial flight.”

Just One Snake

Trail Wood #100 Earl Plato
Okay I love nature but I have another side to my character. I like local history too. I had published by Van Well Publishing Company my first of three historical fiction novels. It is entitled, Terror at Snake Hill. The setting is 1866 the Fenian Invasion of Upper Canada and the Battle of Ridgeway. The word “terror” in the novel had more than one reason for the word. In the climax chapter of the novel the heroine is trapped in the old redoubt at historic Fort Erie. She and her young friend enter the old stone fortification. He two bar the door. She turns to face a wall writhing with snakes hence the use of the word “terror.”. As a teenager on bike we visited an old quarry pi one Saturday in spring. There on one wall of the pit were, hundreds of garter snakes. It was mating time. snakes were writhing on the various ledges. It was a sight I never forgot. Years later I used that serpent scenario in my little novel.
Not so many snakes at Teale’s Summerhouse Rock as I saw but here is his concluding report:
“ Why have they selected our Trail Wood pond for their rendezvous? How have they arrived at this one? My guess is that they have followed scent trails left behind by the female. For a good part of the day this mating tangle of sinuous bodies remains on the rock. During long periods all the water snakes are still. Then a general wriggling and changing of positions sets in. By evening the May encounter is at an end. The aquatic snakes begin to scatter. In the next dawn we will see only one, the resident that makes its home along Azalea Shore. I wonder where the others will go. How far did they came for this tangled assemblage? Beside the pond the female will give birth to the living young that will number anywhere between sixteen and forty-four. Life for these creatures is precarious and usually short.”

One Northern water snake in Teale's Pond May5th

Trail Wood #99 Earl Plato
Time for water snakes? My memory goes back to a time of youth circa ten or eleven. We, three of us, were on an old raft poling ourselves across Plato pond. On the far northwest edge of the water a large, black scaly snake entered the water. Weaving its way it headed for us. I can still recall cousin Sam calling out/ “It’s a water moccasin!” Some how Sam walked on water as he headed for shore. Amazing. The snake was a big, black Northern water snake. Non-poisonous we found out. Scared , yes. We informed Sam that water moccasins were not indigenous to Niagara.
I have stood at the large Teale pond. Ed Teale gives us a good glimpse of Northern water snakes.
“ Up until yesterday we have one resident water snake in our pond, a rather pretty dark banded reptile, easily alarmed and always disappearing at my approach. In the morning yesterday I saw it had been joined by a stranger. By noon a second newcomer had made its appearance. By evening a thitd had arrived.
Now as Nellie and I examine the pond edges in the morning light we discover the number had risen to five. While we watch we catch sight of one water snake after another swimming steadily toward Summerhouse Rock. There they haul themselves out and lie on its flat surface. Soon e are looking through its field glasses at a mass of wriggling. Intertwining serpents. This May our pond is a rendezvous. A mating place, that has drawn water snakes from the surronding area. One, I believe, is thick bodied, older and almost black in color.
… Numerous males are trying to mate with one female. But they do it without any evidence of fighting among themselves.”

female water snake eating a fish

 

male northern water snake

 

Blackburnian warbler

 

Yellowthroat warbler

 

Warbler Time in Trail Wood

Trail Wood #98 Earl Plato

Early May at Trail Wood in central Connecticut with the Teales. “Sitting on this old log beside the twisting course of Hampton Brook, I have been watching the treetops, observing a small band of warblers darting about, endlessly in motion as they feed among the filmy clouds of newly expanding leaves. Spring sunshine illuminates the woods. The air is warm, filled with the primeval smells of earth in May.
And all the while overhead among the upper twigs and branches, I glimpse the bright little bodies of the warblers, the blue-winged, the chestnut-sided, the black-and-white, the yellowthroat, and he prairie. They start and stop, dart and flutter. Their colors catch the eye. Their clear, carrying, emphatic little voices fill the woods. They are active life in its most visible form on this sunny morning in early May”
Note : In Marcy Woods the trilliums are in bloom. A yellowthroat, a black-and-white warblers are back. The melodious call of a wood thrush calls from the wetlands. A great time.

male Baltimore oriole

 

Baltimore oriole's neat nest

 

The orioles are back

Trail Wood #97 Earl Plato
The first day of May goes on. Teale wrote:
“Noon: the oriole is back in the hickory tree. Among the the upper branches, still unclothed in leaves, I catch he male’s black and white and orange plumage flashing in starts and stops, the contrasts brilliant in midday sunshine. I hear the clear, flutelike whistle, the same rich tones that have been part of each year since we cane to Trail Wood. Two or three days before the usual time of its arrival, the bird has returned from its long flight to the south, and then, in season, to the north again. It has come home to the identical nesting tree where a year ago its mate wove a deep pendent pocket nest anchored near the tip of one pf the highest limbs.”

Red- shouldered hawk

Trail Wood #96 Earl Plato

Teale continued with his May 1st log entry. “ And what do I see-morning, noon, and night - walking through this initial day of this favorite month of spring?
Morning. A Red-shouldered hawk drops down from a tree to a rock at the edge of Azalea Shore on the southern side of the pond. It wades out into the shallows and for several minutes I see it through my glasses splashing and shaking itself as it takes a bath.”.”

Red-shoulgered hawk