Behind our home towards the south is a wooded area. About 30 feet into the woods is a small creek that encircles the property and which only flows during heavy rains. To call it an intermittent stream would be an exaggeration.
Along the creek in a sand bank, I spotted a partial raccoon track. Based on the size, it appears to be a front foot.
This tree with a beautiful mosaic of fungi was laying across the creek bed.
Just above one the creek banks I discovered a hollowed-out red oak that I had not previously noticed. The opening at the bottom on the inside was about 2 feet in diameter. Seeing it reminded me of one of my favorite books as a boy....My Side of the Mountain.
Birds are known to use all types of materials for their nests. My boys found this one on the ground. In addition to the typical natural nest building materials, this particular bird chose to use some strips from plastic bags. Perhaps he wanted to protect himself better from the elements. :-)
Last year we received no snow, which was a great disappointment. The temperatures this fall and winter have consistently been 10 degF above normal so I was not optimistic about snow this year either. However, on Christmas night, a blizzard was predicted for our general region.
Some areas were predicted to receive well over 12 inches, and we were predicted to receive 4-6 inches. The prediction was quite accurate and we did receive around 6 inches. Friends in Southern Illinois confirmed the much higher snowfalls with one receiving 13 inches. The temperatures were in the upper 20's and the snow was heavy and wet.
White Spruce
Dogwood
Compost Piles
Squirrel Tracks
This morning I almost stepped on a marsh slug (Deroceras laeve) in search of a Thanksgiving Day meal.
We visited my childhood home in the suburbs
of St. Louis last week and we took a 10 minute detour to a creek
that I frequently played in as a boy. I have many stories and fond
memories of this creek and the surrounding woods.
One
characteristic that not many local folk are aware of is that the creek bed is
rich in fossils. When I was 11-13 years old, I spent many a summer day with an equally enthusiastic friend, sitting on the gravel bars scouring the rocks for
fossils.
The vast majority of the fossils are coelenterates,
bryozoans, brachiopods, crinoids, and very rarely, arthropods. Trilobites
were considered the Holy Grail. Over a two year period, I found
only one trilobite and it was small and incomplete. Later, whilst
in college, I was telling a fellow biology student about this
creek and he was quite skeptical. One afternoon, we made a visit
and he was happy to find some nice specimens. Below are few that I found during my 10 minutes there. I really need to set aside an
afternoon in the summer to do a more extensive survey of the area.
I watched cedar waxwings quietly blanketing a black tupelo tree and devouring the ripe, blue fruit.
Thanks to Chris Rawlings at Invertebrates & More, I have been paying much closer attention to what is on the underside of leaves. (It always seems to come back to the importance of observation.) Here are some opened egg casings on a willow oak leaf. Probably from moth or butterfly larvae.
Green brains.....that is what my children call hedge apples. This time of year it is common in Kentucky to find the osage-orange trees (Maclura pomifera) dropping their hedge apple fruit. The fruit was named hedge apple both because of the large round shape (4"-5" diameter) and the fact that most osage-orange trees can be found along hedge and fence rows, and that is precisely where I stumbled upon this particular example.
As I cut open the fruit, it oozed a white sap quite profusely. This liquid dries very quickly into a sticky pitch-like substance which will not wash off with soap and water and would make a very effective water-proofing substance. I had to resort to mineral spirits to clean my knife. In the days of yore, hedge apples would be placed under beds to keep the spiders away. Scientific studies have shown that the sap of the fruit does indeed contain a substance which repels several insect species as effectively as our synthetic DEET insect repellent. However, you won't find me slathering the sap on my skin or clothing!
On Saturday, we visited Dixon Springs State Park in Southern Illinois. (I originally posted on Dixon Springs back in 2008.) It was a balmy 72 degF, and the fall colors were at an ebb which was a bit surprising given that just 45 minutes to the south in Kentucky, we are still enjoying a strong display of foliage.
The creek had still not recovered from our severe summer drought as there was no water in the creek above the dam in spite of recent rains. The spring was still producing a slight trickle which kept the pools from becoming stagnant.
We did our
usual hike down Ghost Dance Canyon. The path was covered with recently
fallen leaves which obscured much of the moss and a plenitude of hickory nuts.
I am always in awe of the distances a tree will send out its roots in search of soil, In this case, an eastern red cedar.
Here is an unidentified rather amorphous fungus. It reminds me of crack sealing expanding foam.
A sun-illuminated northern red oak.
We had our first hard frost of the season. It was 26 degF at dawn.
