24, 30 August

 

24 August

The Forest and Wetlands are increasingly and alarmingly dry.  Mosses, once lush, are fading.

The remaining ghost pipes stand, blackened.

Vitality persists.  Huckleberry springs from nurse stumps and trailing blackberry still trails.

Two patches of slime mold are fruiting and showy.  This patch appears to be making its way along the log and onto a fern.

Sometimes called "scrambled egg slime mold," this is a showy fruiting body.

(Reader, caution.  Don't let this put you off scrambled eggs!)

Cedars continue to provide squirrels with little snacks.

The water level in the Marsh continues to sink.

Near the dock, the mud is replacing water, and we're not seeing as many frogs.

The snows of last year are gone from Arrowsmith, and the forest is showing heat stress.

We left the dock, hoping to see rain in our future, but walking through a dry forest.

30 August

The effects of drought persist in the Hamilton Forest and Wetlands.  Given that the intent of this blog has been to track seasonal change, I am writing up the effects, gloomy though they may be.  

The understory of the woods is increasingly dry.

The dry conditions appear to worsen insect damage, not just to the understory,

 

but the maples are also showing the maple tarspot fungus, 

Terry Taylor, Arrowsmith Naturalist's invaluable guide to fungi and other matters botanical, provided a write-up of the fungus' life cycle:

It is the maple tarspot fungus (Rhytisma punctatum). Appears every year as the maple leaves start to die and turn yellow. It is in the leaves all spring and summer but does not start to grow until the leaves start to die. The black spots are the spore cases. The green area is living cells with chlorophyll. The fungus keeps that part of the leaf alive, so it can make sugars for the developing spores. The dead leaves remain on the forest floor over winter, and in the spring the spores are released, and float up to the new buds, where they grow into the leaves, but remain very inactive until the end of summer.

Thimbleberry along the path are definitely feeling the drought.

The mosses continue to fade.

The Marsh continues to dry--even the frog population is down, although bullfrogs persist.

We've never seen the water level this low in our three years of observing.

 A young spotted towhee in transitional plumage eyed me suspiciously from a willow.

The vegetation fringing the marsh shows heat stress.

Much of the Marsh, formerly under water, is mud.

We can only hope for a wet autumn.