| spring
in west virginia |
Fores-@aol.com |
| Apr
10, 2004 06:37 PDT |
ENTS
friends:
I have been running on a woods lore deficit for about three
weeks.
Until the other day, I thought ENTS was unusually quiet.
I just found my e-mail was blocking the posts.
I read over bunches of old posts and am glad to be getting back
in the loop.
It is now early spring in West Virginia and all the small town
fire
departments are having their annual ramp dinners.
The first of the morel mushrooms are starting to emerge.
Blue Cohosh is nearly 18 inches tall and flowering.
Bloodroot is blossoming and wild pear trees are in bloom.
Mayapple is four inches tall.
Dogwood is just starting to bloom.
Red maple is almost done and paw paw is just starting to flower.
Deep woods neotropical birds are passing through on their way to
Canada and
the morning sounds in the woods are a once a year symphony that
never gets old.
Redbud is just starting to "bud" and the visibility
through the hardwood
forest is diminishing to a degree that is noticeable on a daily
basis as buds
swell and the very first leaves of the buckeye emerge.
Yesterday, I picked off my first tick of the year.
Otherwise, life is good in the bowels of Appalachia.
Russ Richardson
|
| RE:
spring in west virginia...Wisconsin |
Paul
Jost |
| Apr
10, 2004 07:50 PDT |
Russ,
All the blackbirds: cowbirds, starlings, grackles, red-wing
blackbirds
returned the first day of March. The vernal
pools are full (there are
three of them on my property.) The deafening western chorus frog
songs are
on the decline and individual frog's songs can be differentiated
from the
other now after having been singing and mating since about the
time that the
blackbirds arrived. Other frog species' songs will continue the
performance
as the spring progresses. The spring prairie wildflowers such as
nodding
wild onions and shooting stars have broken the ground's surface
about a week
or so ago, the boxelders are in full bloom...The goldfinches are
starting to moult into their summer yellows.
None of the native trees have flowered or leafed out yet here.
The exotic
tartarian honeysuckle have just started to green up over the
last few days
and the exotic multiflora rose and european buckthorns are next.
I don't
expect the full native leaf out and return of the warblers until
the first
week of May. I had my first mosquito bite the other day - one
that looked
very different from the summer mosquitos - a larger dark gray
body with a
single white band around the abdomen. Spring is just starting to
arrive
here!
Paul Jost
|
| Wildlife
milestones |
edniz |
| Apr
12, 2004 02:34 PDT |
Hello,
Spring seems to
be proceeding according to plan here in the Southern
Tier, but we have recently had two wildlife milestones. A local
naturalist
has confirmed that a fisher has made it into the Southern Tier.
This person
spotted it as roadkill. When the article appeared in the paper
many other
individuals said they had seen this animal themselves.
There was also a
report on Sat., April 10th, of a cougar being seen
near an elementary school in Canton, PA. This is just over the
border from
us. Kids are being kept out of the playground because of three
credible
reports regarding this animal. The last report of a mountain
lion being
killed in the wild in PA was 1880. A spokesman for the
Pennsylvania Game
Commission said that it might be a bobcat.
Ed Nizalowski |
|