Puu Makaala Natural Area Reserve

The Puu Makaala Natural Area Reserve is a wet native forest on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was very near our rental house so was only a short outing. The route to the reserve is a narrow road that dead ends and then there is a short walk back along a fence to the reserve’s sign and a ladder stile to get yourself up and over the fence. Inside is a trail maintained by cutting the prolific vegetation – probably with a machete.

The trees in the forest are koa and ohi’a but they are hard to see because there are so many tree ferns. The fronds are very large on these plants and it is easy to imagine what the understory of tropical forests must have been like during the time of the dinosaurs (in fact, limited visibility in this forest because of plant density makes one hyper conscious of the rustling noises in the foliage and glad that there is a fence to keep the wild pigs out).

As usual – I honed in on the fiddleheads that were close to eye level. There were big hairy ones,

Small bristly ones,

And smooth purple spirals.

There was lots of moss around too and most of it seemed to include sporophytes.

Most of the time, the view upward was filled with large ferns…but there was always a hint of the higher layers of the forest.

I was only able to see the huge trunks of those larger trees.

On the way back to the car – outside the fence – I notice some camellias that must have been planted along the road. The texture and color of the dried fern fronts with the flower that had recently fallen caught my attention…a nice ending to the outing.

Previous Hawaii Posts:

• Getting to Hawaii
• Thurston Lava Tube and Kilauea Iki Trail
• Chain of Craters Road
• Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden
• Lava Tree State Park
• Maunakea
• Akaka Falls State Park

Akaka Falls State Park

Akaka Falls State Park is a 400+ foot waterfall with a nice loop trail. The trail is paved which a good thing because the place is very wet; the penalty for stepping off is sinking into mud! The first view of the falls is partially obscured by foliage.Then there is a bend of the trail and more of the falls comes into view.

Finally there is an overlook.

I took several zoomed images as well.

There are lots of smaller watercourses through the foliage too…the place is wet!

It is a place of ferns unfurling

And moss growing even on the metal railings of the path.

There are interesting roots too – aerial

And embracing rocks.

I noticed more insects here too – an ant

And a small grasshopper.

There was a lizard eyeing us from leaves too.

There were lots of different flowers too. The place is full of blooming plants.

Previous Hawaii Posts:

• Getting to Hawaii
• Thurston Lava Tube and Kilauea Iki Trail
• Chain of Craters Road
• Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden
• Lava Tree State Park
• Maunakea

Zooming – November 2015

The ‘zooming’ collages for this month all about views of fall:

• Colored leaves
• Mushrooms and puffballs
• Seed pods
• Geese over the treetops
• Ferns and moss surrounded by died leaves

Enjoy the slide show!

Intimate Landscapes – October 2015

I enjoyed Eliot Porter’s Intimate Landscapes book (available online here) enough to think about my own photographs from a similar perspective and will start a monthly series this month with my ‘picks’ that fit the criteria: smaller scale but not macro, multiple species, and artsy.

I liked this first one because of the colors…and the tenacity of the plants growing on the rocks sticking out into the lake. The colors from the landscape are a blurry reflection in the water surrounding the plants.

The next one is close to a macro image. It is beech nut hulls and lichen in the mulch. Again the colors – golden brown and pale green – were what drew my attention.

The newly fallen leaf – surrounded by older leaves and pine needles (some of which were shed after the leaf fell since they over it) - appealed to me as did the hint of a red leaf peaking from under one of the brown leaves.

I was surprised to notice so many plants growing in this scene – moss, lichen, shelf fungus. That may be a rhododendron at the back. This intimate landscape is teaming with plant life!

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area

Cranberry Glade Botanical Area was a stop on our way between Beartown State Park and Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in West Virginia. It is a boggy area with mountains around it. Many of the trees on the mountains had lots their leaves already…although there were some remnants of color left.

The cotton grass was waved in the breeze.

The boardwalk makes it easy to stay just above the bog yet see the dense grown on old logs.

The mosses growing directly in the bog are mostly green…but sometimes are vividly red.

Small plants are everywhere

But require bending down for a closer look.

There is a visitor center nearby that had an exhibit about invasive species (insects) that are causing problems in the area. They also had a laminated, folded quick reference about invasive plants that I bought – similar to ones I have about native birds and plants.

Beartown State Park

We visited Beartown State Park in West Virginia for the first time back in 2001. It is a small, but memorable park and well worth another visit. It consists primarily of a boardwalk around huge boulders covered with moss, ferns and lichens….

(and some very fast moving chipmunks)

With lots of trees that manage to grow up through the rocks.

The deep narrow crevasses are as similar to the slot canyons in the western US as we get on the East coast.

I took a picture of a staircase with my husband on it to provide some an element of scale.

The rock face had eroded pits. It is hard to fathom the amount of time it takes for weathering to form these pits; some of them are large enough to hold a person.

The leaf color was spectacular up close and

Looking up to the sky.

My special find of the walk was a pair of puff balls.

Growing In/On Rocks

I photographed a lot of organisms growing on the rocks when we made our tour of state parks in southern New York (Stony Brook, Robert H. Treman, Taughannock, and Letchworth). Most of the gorges are crumbling shale - small and large slabs. Since we are focused on waterfalls - some of the plants were cling to wet or damp rocks.

There were mosses and ferns that see to require very little soil

Others that grew in a bit more soil in the cracks…or lichen that grows on the surface of rock, breaking away small bits of the stone over long periods of time.

Any structure built of stones seemed to have colonized by something from algae to lichen to liverworts to mosses to ferns to higher plants. I enjoyed taking pictures of the small landscapes on the rock walls of the gorges and the walls/bridges that had been constructed for the trail. Enjoy my picks for the slideshow below!

Stony Brook State Park - August 2015

The first and last park we visited in our trek to state parks in New York back in August was Stony Brook State Park. The first time we were in the park was a hot Monday afternoon - and there were lots of people in the water. It was hard to get pristine pictures of anything. We returned during a damp and cool morning a few days later; the only other people in the park were park personnel!

There is a lot of moving water in the park: large falls and little trickles. The gray day made it easier to photograph.

My favorite of the images is a low falls - a little dark with the greens  and mists of late summer framing the water.

I liked the stone bridges

And wooden bridges.

Both had lichen and moss growing on their stone abutments.

There were some leaves that looked worn from summer…getting ready for fall.

There were berries ripening too.

There were a few cairns but not as many as we saw at Robert H. Treman State Park.

Last but not least - there was a spider waiting patiently in a web suspended from hemlock branches full of water droplets.

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge

After we left the barrier islands - our plan was to visit some of the inland wildlife refuges so our first stop was the multi-refuge Visitor Center in Manteo. We picked up the maps and brochures for all the refuges we wanted to visit. I couldn’t resist photographing the colorful tile band in the visitor center restroom!

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge was the first refuge we visited. As we turned onto the wild life loop road (gravel), we were thrilled to see otters frolicking in the canal. I benefited from my husband walking ahead of me and getting most of their attention. They were huffing at him to go away when I took this picture.

There were a few wildflowers. This one had a spider!

The maples were further along their seed production than our tree in Maryland.

I only saw one mushroom but this was lovely nestled in this moss and pine needles.

Fiddleheads were everywhere. The forest was wet…lots of places for ferns to grow.

The pines were releasing a lot of pollen. Our car was covered with the yellow dust when we returned from our hike.

We used our car as a blind to photograph 2 vultures on the other side of the canal from the wildlife drive. The black vulture (on the left) was feeding on a raccoon carcass as we drove up. The turkey vulture (on the right) was waiting patiently at first - but then seemed to become more assertive and the black vulture flew away and the turkey vulture settled in for a meal.

There were also turtles. They were very sensitive to any noise and would plop in the water very quickly. I was glad to catch these two…complete with reflections.

And last but not least, as we reached the highway out of the refuge we spotted an alligator in the canal by the road. He seemed to be dozing in the sun at first. As I used the full zoom on my camera - he opened his eye. What an ending to a visit to the refuge!

Master Naturalist Field Trip - Part 2

After the hike along Trolley Trail between Banneker Historical Park and Museum and Ellicott City on Saturday (previous post), our group headed to the Avalon area of Patapsco Valley State Park. The Thomas Viaduct - a railroad bridge that crosses the Patapsco River and Valley just inside the park. It was completed in 1835 and still carries railroad traffic!

In our previous Master Naturalist classes we had learned about the history of the area from colonial times. Where the sign talks about Elkridge Landing as a port looking unimaginable today; the silt and dams have changed the river tremendously since colonial days when Elkridge Landing was a significant port.

The CCC built building in the park and we visited one. It was built of stone and there was an interesting nest (wasps?) near the ceiling of the porch. The inside is evidently riddled with termites - beyond repair.

There is a sewer pipe is exposed along the river. It was uncovered during the flood caused by Hurricane Agnes in 1972 - and there is not stable way to cover it again. The river was stocked a few days before our hike; a little boy was fishing with his day and joyously held up a fish they’d caught for us to see as we were walking on the swinging bridge over the Patapsco.

We saw a couple of skunk cabbage just poking up from the leaves.

The main green was moss. This log with green cap was a welcome relieve from the brown leaves.

There was some color in the rocks too if you looked closely…a lot of big crystals in pegmatite.

And what’s not to like about water tumbling over rocks…and down to the river. It was a good last ‘uphill’ for the day. We’d been out and about since 8:30 and it was 4:30. The Master Naturalist field trip was history.

Master Naturalist Field Trip - Part 1

Last Saturday was the day-long field trip for our Master Naturalist class. It was very cold but everyone bundled up and headed out from the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum. We saw a replica of the type of cabin that would have been on the property when Banneker lived there and marveled that the property was purchased with 7,000 pounds of tobacco. Dried tobacco is very light so we assumed it must have still been green…but that is still a lot of tobacco.

One of the first stops was the Banneky House built in the mid-1800s - long after Benjamin Banneker’s time. Our focus was the rocks on its exterior! This wall showcases Ellicott City Granite with the small, very dark pieces being amphibole.

We started to walk down the pathway of the park to the Trolley Trail that would take us into Ellicott City. The trolley stopped in 1959 and the rail to trail occurred in the 1990s. The forest was not an old forest and there were some houses (some very new ones in the mix) built fairly close to the water. The weather has been too cold for wildflowers to be blooming but there were other things of interest. I always stop for shelf fungi and these with gray/white/rust rings were nestled into some green lichen….the color and texture was eye catching.

There was water trickling everywhere…and the most seemed very green against the backdrop of rocks and brown leaves left over from last season.

The bed of moss has fruiting bodies! Note that the height of the whole plant is only about 2-3 inches.

We saw frogs eggs - but the frogs were silent in the cold (and probably burrowed somewhere to keep warm).

There were swirls in some of the rocks beside the trail. Thinking about the metamorphosis of rock under pressure requires a conscious effort to understand a timescale that is beyond our normal comprehension.

We get down to Ellicott City in time for lunch. The decision to eat at a restaurant (and warm up) rather than picnic was welcomed by all.

I noticed the cairns in the little park across from the restaurant. At least two types of rocks were easy to spot!

The post that marks the water level above the normal river height during various floods is at the river end of Main Street in Ellicott City. The one in 1868 is at the very top of the bridge railing. That would have flooded two floors of the buildings! At that time the area would have been heavily farmed - most of the forests would have been fields so the water would have run off quickly from a storm. The 1972 mark is from Hurricane Agnes. Some forest had grown back but there was beginning to be a lot of housing development. More has been built since then. What would happen if a storm like Hurricane Agnes happened again today? A lot of impervious pavement has been added to the watershed. Are there enough forested buffers and rain gardens to slow down the flow of stormwater during a big storm?

After lunch, our group carpooled to the Avalon area of Patapsco Valley State Park. I’ll post about that part of the field trip later this week.

First Day Hike

It was a cold January 1 in our area of Maryland and my husband was just getting over a cold --- he didn’t want to hike. So I took a very short hike from a two lane road near us down to the Little Patuxent River. I want to try out my new monopod/hiking pole. It turned out to be a good idea since I managed to unscrew the bottom section completely!

All the leaves were brown and brittle. The sycamore leaves were still largely intact and quite large from the trees growing along the river.

I was not fast enough to photograph the great blue heron that was evidently fishing in the river when I arrived.  There were some deer that were on the opposite bank - white tails flashing by the time I saw them.

The places where the water was still enough were still frozen from the previous night’s temperature drop into the 20s.

I looked for shelf fungus on the downed logs but only saw tiny ones but this moss with sporophytes add some color to the otherwise drab colors of winter.

On the way home I stopped at the storm water pond in our neighborhood.

The stumps from a visit from a beaver a few years ago were still visible near the short - and punctuated the ice at the pond’s edge.

And a surprise from my daughter in Tucson - they had snow on January 1! She sent the pictures below.