Gleanings of the Week Ending June 25, 2016

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

What the rising light pollution means for our health – Circadian disruption from ill-timed electrical lighting (particularly at night) may contribute to poor sleep, obesity, diabetes, certain cancers and mood disorders. The night time lights are shifting to LEDs in our cities which has the effect of shifting that lighting toward the blue wavelengths which are most disruptive to our circadian rhythms.

Vitamin D may not be the great solution to health problems – I remember when the testing for vitamin levels revealed that many people were low and doctors started recommending supplementation – sometimes megadoses of the vitamin. Now the results are being reviewed --- and it is obvious that it is not a panacea and may not be of very much benefit at all.

What if the coolest thing about a 21^st-century school wasn’t technology? – The results of a TED workshop on creating a new healthy school from scratch. What do you think of their ideas?

Lightning Strikes: How to Stay Safe – Hopefully most of these recommendations are familiar to you - we’ve been having a lot of thunderstorms recently so I took a look to refresh my knowledge.

Garlic mustard populations likely to decline – I hope this begins to happen soon in our area. Right now we seem to have a lot of this plant around our area of Maryland.

Ancient satellite busts massive gas storage leak, fracking could be next – I’ve always wondered how we could detect leaks more effectively – conserve our resources by reducing leakage – and maybe this is a solution! It’s another example of a NASA instrument (and satellite) working long after its original mission was complete.

Americans are getting heart-healthier: Coronary heart disease decreasing in the US – Hurray! The study compared 2001 and 2012. The prevalence of smoking decreased during that same time period although high blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol have not (although control rates have improved). Obesity and diabetes rates have increased significantly but overall control of glucose levels has improved significantly.

Meet an Artist with no Hands – A historical piece about Matthias Buchinger – but with discussion about how the brain accommodates physical challenges such as being born without hands and learning to use feet with exceptional skill.

Flow: What is it and how to find it – How much of your day is in “flow”? I think quite a lot of mine is. The key for me is realizing that I often have more choice in the way I want to be…the way I want to do everything.

Study offers explanation for why women leave engineering – I’m not surprised by the results of this study. I was at the peak of women graduating from computer science programs in the 1980s (mine was in a math department rather than engineering) and was surrounded by so many interesting projects early on that I didn’t get into a marginalized (or menial tasks) role until later when I was strong enough to recognize it and get out it on my own – back into a place I wanted to be.

CSA Week 4

The medium share at the Gorman Farm CSA was large again this week. I’m going to take two bags instead of one next week…since the bounty really does require the spaces – and I can more easily spread the weight to carry it all to the car. This week the share included (starting in the upper left corner and moving clockwise: mizuna (my choice from the overage bins…it is only available early in the season and I really like it), peas, scallions, beets, chard, Romaine lettuce, collards, broccoli, savoy cabbage, and kale.

I took some close up pictures of the broccoli,

Chard, and

Peas….so many beautiful foods for this next week.

I fit the leafy things into two plastic bins and some plastic bags. The beets (minus their leaves, cabbage, and broccoli in the crisper. So far, I’ve not had anything go to waste via spoilage and I want to keep it that way.

I’ll make fruit beety tomorrow. While the beets cook I’ll make kale chips. Both will keep longer in processed form although the fruit beety is one of my favorite summer snacks so I probably won’t put any of this batch in the freezer.

Brookside Gardens – June 2016

I had guests over the past two weeks and Brookside Gardens is one of the places that just about everyone enjoys. We got their early enough to be part of the first group into the Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit. The butterflies inside were pretty much the same as we saw in late May that that I posted about early this month. I did get to see caterpillars for the black swallowtail. I had them on parsley growing on my deck a few years back – so many of them that the parsley was demolished!

There were insects in the gardens that were active because the day was already warm: dragonflies like the garden rooms that include a water feature and

Bubble bees seem to be everywhere.

There was a mockingbird that made lots of noise from the pinnacle of a small tree.

Every bush in the rose garden seemed to be blooming.

I like the ones that seemed to glow from within in the bright sunlight.

A succulent has been planted in an urn where it was blooming and spilling over the side.

The early summer flowers were at every turn.

The tadpoles near the Tea Garden pavilion were huge – about 6 inches long. since the tail was still so long I wondered how long it would be before they made the transformation to frogs.

The native dogwoods are already done with blooming for the year but the Asian ones were still in bloom. I liked the soft pink of one so much that I took a lot of pictures of it. My three favorite images are below.

Milkweed Update

A few days ago the milkweed flowers were still only buds. Now they are blooming and the insects are very active around them. The smell very sweet to human noses too!

I have seen several types of bees – the very large bumble bees

And the smaller honey bees and native bees.

There are other insects as well – did you note the ant on the flower in the first picture?

There are bugs on the leaves too. The one I noticed yesterday – and identified via a web search – was a Pennsylvania leatherwing beetle or goldenrod soldier beetle. The yellow ovals on the ends of its legs are aphids!

Unfortunately – I can’t find any Monarch caterpillars. I hope we have some that hatch and survive when the Monarchs arrive from Mexico since the early ones seem to have all perished. I talked to a third grader that had been in a class where they tried to raise Monarch caterpillars this spring and she told me that most of their caterpillars died because they were infected with parasites…and that it seemed that the stripes of the ones that died early were more wiggly than straight (i.e. they looked different than the caterpillars that survived to make their chrysalis and eventual emerge as a healthy butterfly). I don’t have a large enough sample size for comparison but from now on I’m going to photograph every caterpillar I find so I can do some comparisons with photographs.

Mount Vernon

I’ve posted about Mount Vernon before – back in the summer of 2013. This time it was hotter and the wind was blowing hard enough to kick up dust. There were a lot of people. I enjoyed trying to photograph the magnolia flowers again while I waited for them to call our time slot for the house tour but the wind had contorted their petals; none of them were symmetrical! Based on the signage about them - most were planted in the 1860s.

I took a picture of the ‘necessary’ at the corner of the garden. This was the area that had overgrown boxwood when we first visited Mount Vernon in the 1980s. Now the garden beds are surrounded by small boxwood and there are flowers and vegetables planted there.

I didn’t remember the shutters over the front door. This is the view from the line for the house tour…on the land side of the house.

Standing further back on the circular drive – on sees the breeze ways on both sides of the house. There used to be steps on the route from the kitchen (on the left) to get to the house but now the line for the house tour goes there and they have a raised floor so that the house can be entered via wheelchair.

The river side of the house has comfortable chairs that are used by almost everyone for a few minutes after they finish the tour - a pleasant shady spot on a hot afternoon.

This is the view of the Potomac River from the house.

The cupola is worth looking at from several vantage points: the river side of the house,

from the side where there are other out buildings, and

from the front.

I’ve noticed lightning rods in all of the older trees before. This time I also saw them on all the outbuildings.

There was also a building that had been newly shingled – not yet painted red. There must always be some maintenance going on even during Washington’s time. One of the outbuildings actually was for storing paint!

Last but not least – I had never really looked at George Washington’s signature….it’s everywhere in the visitor’s center.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 18, 2016

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

How dirty is your air? – Based on this article – I am trying to get in the habit of turning on the vent fan when I am cooking….and opening some windows when the outdoors temperature is pleasant.

Serious Putty – A clay with antimicrobial properties…even against resistant strains! More research is needed – but it is exciting that this could be a totally different mechanism for fighting infection that the current antibiotics on the market.

Snow in Vietnam and Other New Climate Patterns Threaten Farmers – This is from the Business Report section of the MIT Technology Review. The article focuses on farmers in Vietnam in an area that got snow for the first time in their life time (and historically) last winter and how weather patterns are impacting their finally honed rhythm for crops. It would be interesting to hear stories from farmers around the world. Climate is changing globally – but not always in the same way.

Sunflower Spirals: Complexity Beyond the Fibonacci Sequence – The results of a crowd sourced look at sunflower spirals: 1 in 5 did not conform to the Fibonacci Sequence. Some of those non-conformers approximated it and others approximated more complex mathematical patterns! Either way – I like the look of sunflower spirals.

Genome Digest – Recent findings of genomic research on giraffes – carrots – zebrafish and gar – herring – Atlantic salmon. A lot has changed since I got my biology degree in the 1980s.

Seeing the Inevitable, companies begin to adapt to climate change – Most companies are aware that climate change is likely to affect their future but are not planning for it with any consistency or depth. Those furthest along are those already dealing with climate change on a daily basis: agriculture and insurance. Ikea and Ford are two companies used as examples in the article.

Tranquil Impressionist-Style Paintings Showcase Beauty of Natural Parks Around America – Eye candy for the week!

Life in the Dark – Photographs of sea and cave creatures that live their whole lives in the dark.

C40’s Executive Director Mark Watts on how mayors are changing the way we think about food – Area of focus are food: procurement, production, distribution, and waste.

Frog, Turtle Species Being Reintroduced to Yosemite Valley – The California red-legged frog (the largest native frog in the western US) and the western pond turtle are being reintroduced to lake, river and meadow habitats.

Monarch Caterpillars

Some milkweed came up in my front flowerbed. It is not the best looking plant around and my husband was lobbying to dig the plants out. I asked him to wait until I got out to photograph them since they were just getting ready to bloom.

Some of the leaves has been partially eaten…and I took a closer look. Sure enough – on the underside of the leave was a monarch caterpillar! The elementary schools in our area raised caterpillars in their third grade classrooms this year – and one of the resulting monarchs must have found its way to our milkweed. That clinched the decision to not dig out the plants at all.

Later I found another smaller caterpillar ---- and then I haven’t found them again in the past few days. Usually they are obvious as they get large because of the amount of the milkweed foliage they eat. Their food generally makes them unpalatable to predators but maybe something else has caused them a problem. We are still leaving the plants for other monarchs that reach our area….something we can do to help the population of Monarchs to increase.

The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College

Last week I walked around some of the Scott Arboretum while my sister did some genealogy research at the McCabe library. It was not an ideal day for photography because it was very windy. Fortunately, it was bright enough that the shutter speed froze some of the motion and I was able to get some flower pictures.

 

The arboretum is integrated with the college buildings and I like the quiet places with benches (lush vegetation spilling around them) and just having the structures as backdrops to some of the garden (in particular in the rose garden).

The vintage buildings appear to be well maintained…with exteriors much as they were when they were first built.

There was a cloister type courtyard with the bell tower and chapel.

When I first walked to it there was a person sitting in the shade reading – enjoying the space out of the wind.

There was climbing variety of hydrangea along the arches of the courtyard.

I definitely want to plan another trek to Scott Arboretum and explore it more thoroughly – without a time constraint and on a day when the wind is not a problem.

Last of the Spring Field Trips at Mt. Pleasant

It’s about time for the school year to end – even with the elongation due to snow days last winter. The last of the spring field trips scheduled for the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant Farm happened this past week. I took a few pictures before the last few hikes. Many of the formal plantings are blooming: peonies,

Flags, and

Sweet bay.

The gingko is shading the picnic area.

On one hike there was a flock of gold finch in the meadow….and an indigo bunting.

I took pictures of the milkweed plants in the meadow a few days later; they’re getting ready to bloom.

A little further down the path -  I spotted the first monarch I’ve seen this season. Is this one that flew from Mexico or released by the school children that are raised monarchs in their classroom? Maybe it doesn’t matter – because Mt Pleasant has milkweed for the butterfly to lay its eggs and for the Monarch caterpillars to eat.

Monjoy Barn gets a little shade in the mornings but by the time I came back with my hiking group it was in full sun.

The children enjoy seeing the orchard with the still-small apples (and pears too). In the fall, the fruit will be the size they see in the grocery store.

The tulip poplar is mostly done with flowering and the seed pods are beginning to form.

The trees around the farm house are in full summer green. Time for “school’s out for the summer.”

CSA Week 2

My pickup on Wednesday afternoon at the Gorman Farm Community Supported Agriculture was very breezy…and full of green. Picked a red leaf butter lettuce to just get some color variety.

When I got home I rinsed everything and organized it into bins, bags, and trays: red leaf lettuce and half the scallions in one bin….the lettuce needs to be eaten before the other greens since it will wilt first; the older half of the scallions and romaine lettuce into the second bin; the kale and garlic scapes into the third bin; the collard cut in half and into a gallon Ziploc, and the thyme spread out on a small tray to dry. With the exception of the thyme – it will all go into the refrigerator.

I managed to eat everything we got in the week 1 share but I’m already anticipating that it will be more challenging with the second week simply because it is larger. I already am planning to make Kale chips from all the kale leaves (the stems will go into a stir fry as will the collard stems). I am going to skew toward salads immediately to use up lettuces and scallions and some of the garlic scapes. Hopefully having everything in closed bins and plastic bags will help keep the rest in good shape long enough to get it all eaten!

Brookside Gardens at the end of May

The overabundance of rain we got in April and May caused the gardens to become lush very quickly as soon at the temperatures began to warm toward the end of May. There were people enjoying being outdoors before we went into the butterfly exhibit…and after we came out.

There were still some azaleas blooming although the peak of their season was well past.

The rhododendrons were full of blooms. I took a cluster through a veil of a cluster closer to the camera.

There were other flowers as well – in small trees.

Mixed with green foliage closer to the ground,

And vines (I think this was a morning glory just beginning to unfurl for the day).

Insects were beginning to make an appearance too. This leaf hopper was using a bridge railing as a highway to the next plant.

There was a moth perched on a poppy.

Sometimes – leaves are spectacular enough to catch attention: the color of these in the shade and sun – layers or

The combination of color and shape (I think these were leaves although I wonder what the flower will be like) or

Huge leaves uncurling (this one reminded me of a scroll with the bumps being writing).

Peonies were blooming the gardens near the exit from the butterfly exhibit. The plants were full of blooms…were lots of buds left to open too.

The alliums caught my attention as I turned to go. They often remind me of the large fireworks that burst into a ball of bright light. The big difference is size and the alliums are more durable!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 4, 2016

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Exposure to chemicals in plastic and fungicides may irreversibly weaken children’s teeth – Another reason to pay close attention to Bisphenol A (BPA) and Vinclozolin in diets of children. Based on this study – this is not something that fluoride treatments or supplements would overcome.

Identifying Wildflowers: part one, part two, part three, part four – From Elizabeth’s Wildflower Blog. This series include a lot of practical advice for identifying wildflowers in the field (and confirming after you get home). I’ve been following Elizabeth’s blog since I was in Master Naturalist class with her --- learning about wildflowers.

Language of Women versus men – An analysis of language in Facebook messages shows that women use language that is warmer and more agreeable than men. The graphic associated with the study is worth a look.

Mysterious Cave Rings show Neanderthals liked to build – And more than 1,000 feet into the cave where it would have been very dark.

Kazakhstan’s treasure trove of wildly-flavored apples – Forests where apple trees are the predominant species!

Tidal Troubles in the Mid-Atlantic – A place where the sea level is rising at a much faster rate than almost anywhere in the US (except parts of Louisiana and South Florida)…and an explanation that goes back to the last ice age which left the area with a ‘fore-bulge’ – so the land is sinking from that then the ocean is rising too! The net is a predicted sea level rise of 3 feet around much of the Mid-Atlantic by 2100.

Three perfectly blue days at Crater Lake National Park – I haven’t been to this national park – yet. This is an article to look at again when I finally get around to planning the trip.

Swarms of Octopus are taking over the oceans – Cephalopods as ‘weeds of the sea’!

The Cactus Smuggler: Are Desert Plants Being Loved to Extinction? – Not a good trend and very difficult to change.

Low-salt diets may not be beneficial after all – Evidently the prior recommendation for low-salt diets was not based on data – the old recommendation was ‘popular thought’ rather than based on objective evidence! High-salt is still bad….but average (between 3 and 4 grams per day) is best!

Zentangle® - May 2016

I’ve selected 31 Zentangles to include in this post since there are 31 days of May. Five that I chose were made on the back of old business cards – so did not display well with the square slide show of tiles. I liked them too much to pick others so I’m displaying them first. Some are plant like…

Others start out as webs….

Or loops.

I was inspired by art nouveau books I found on Internet Archive and Hathi Trust as well.

Those same themes show up in the tiles as well. The tiles also are some new colors this month. I was cleaning out boxes of brochures and old folders; instead of putting everything into recycling, I used some of the heavier paper to cut tiles: red, yellow, and rust. I also found some dusty poster board that had probably been on the shelf for 10 years that I cut up into 3.5 x 3.5 inch tiles!

Enjoy the May slideshow!

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Learning Log – May 2016

Most of the learning I logged in May was experiential or in conversations with other people. I went to a lecture on wildflowers – the closest I came to a class. The speaker included a segment on buzz pollination, reinforcing what I already knew about it from my son-in-law about the topic. He also pointed out that the jack-in-the-pulpit flowers look the same from the outside but the male and female flowers are quite different inside – but one has to cut away the outer part of the flower to see the structures. Not something I would do!

One area of experiential learning in May was picking strawberries. Years ago when I picked strawberries, I did so on my knees so I was pleasantly surprised that the mounds of my CSA’s strawberry patch made it easier to just bend over to gather the fruit. I’m still enjoying the strawberries I picked.

The other big experience of the month was using the scanner – primarily for old slides, pictures and Zentangle tiles. I learned to use a can of compressed air to clean the dust off periodically and how to scan multiple items at a time (into separate images). I also raised the scanner on a stand so that I didn’t have to bend over slightly each time I loaded it.

There were a lot of factoids I picked up in conversations with other naturalists before field trip hikes:

• Carolina wrens build multiple nests and then the female chooses one (from a birder),
• Earthworms come to the surface during rains not because they are drowning but because they are migrating (from another naturalist that had been reading about it),
• How the ‘points’ of antlers are counted (from a chaperone of a hiking group),
• Inexpensive wire mesh kitchen strainers work great to capture macro-invertebrates in rivers and streams (from a leader of a field trip to the Patapsco River).

Zooming – May 2016

The zoomed images are more familiar things list month. See how many of them you recognize (click on the image to see an enlarged version of the collage).

Grackle and chives bud

Horse chestnut and paulownia (princess tree) flowers

Sweet bay bud, chives (further along their bloom cycle than the first image), tulip poplar flowers

Toad, lacewing, grass with heavy dew

Mourning doves, strawberries, iris flower

Arecibo in 1978

I saw a story about a large radio telescope being built in China recently and it reminded me of the one in Puerto Rico – Arecibo. My husband was there in September 1978 – just a few months after he went to Wallops and Chincoteague. It was all part of his first years as a graduate student. The trip he made to Arecibo was the longest travel-for-work either of us ever did and we were a little discombobulated by it; looking back I wonder why I didn’t take the opportunity to take some vacation and see Puerto Rico; I suppose that we were so unsure of our financial situation that we didn’t even think about it. He brought back a lot of photographs of the place. Look closely at this first picture and note the people on the structure (upper left) and in a small enclosure evidently hoisted to allow work on the structure (center).

There are some pictures of 1978 vintage computers.

Then the view looking down to the dish at an angle

And to the very center.

Underneath the vegetation is kept at bay.

At that time – I had never seen variegated croton. My husband brought back pictures and some dried leaves as a souvenir.

Strawberries

It has been a wet, cool spring here in Maryland and the Gorman Farms Community Support Agriculture is going to get a late start…sliding from June 1^st into the 2^nd or 3^rd week of June depending on what happens in the next week or so. But ---- the strawberry season is going strong. CSA medium share members get a pint of strawberries free each day the farm is open for picking!

I’ve been twice so far. The picking is easy from the mounds although that means the path between the plants is lower and very muddy right after a rain….which was definitely the case the first time I went. The good news was that there were plenty of berries to pick and more left to ripen.

On both days I ate half the pint right after I got home! And then the rest the next day.

Aside from just eating strawberries just as they are – I love them in salads. My favorite salad so far has been arugula, quinoa, almond slivers, and strawberries….with an orange marmalade dressing (a little oil combined with orange marmalade). This is salad as dessert (but actually eaten as lunch)!

Next time I go – I plan to pick a bucket of strawberries and pay for the amount over the pint. As a CSA member we get a discount. I’m going to load up the freezer with strawberries to start of the summer.

Belmont Cemetery

One of the stations on the 6^th grade field trip to Belmont is at the cemetery not far from the Manor House. It was my station earlier this week; I walked out early to get everything set. The cemetery is situation on a gentle slope at the edge of the forest. Looking toward the Manor House, the trees on the grounds are large enough to almost hide the house. The cemetery was used by the family that owned the land from the late 1700s until the mid-1900s.

The longest lived person in the cemetery was 95 years old…and a relatively recent burial.

There was a baby that only survived a few weeks. The cemetery prompts discussion of history…of health care. There are also other topics. Note the difference in weathering of the stones between the one from 1922 and the one from 1972; the newer one (1972) looks more weathered --- different types of stones --- geology.

Another stone toward the back – a child 2 years old with a different last name than any other person in the cemetery. This child was a visitor from Baltimore that died at Belmont and buried in the cemetery in 1834. Her grandfather was Francis Scott Key – another link to history. This grave is toward the back and appears to be isolated but a survey with ground penetrating radar found graves in the open area in the center of the cemetery --- bringing up technology and archaeology.

Lichen growing on a stone that is old enough to be so weathered it cannot be easily read brings up biology and how rock is chemically weathered by the algal/fungi symbionts.

The very large (and old) Tulip Poplar tree just outside the cemetery’s fence is also something the students noticed.

The buses were 20+ minutes later than expected so I had time for some bird observation as well. The blue birds, robins, and tree swallows were enjoying the mowed grass area in front of the cemetery.

Other posts about volunteering at Belmont this month:

• Belmont BioBlitz
• Birds at Belmont for Pre-Schoolers

Mt. Pleasant in May 2016

I volunteered for several field trips in May at the Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm – but only managed to take pictures the morning I spent with some middles schoolers engaged in ‘service learning’ which translates to cutting or pulling invasive species. It was a cool, cloudy day like much of our May has been. The Honors Garden gate was open as I walked by – the fountain was on and the garden looked well-tended.

I noticed the old pump – now disconnected but still in its originally location.

The flower pot people were dressed in spring finery.

The wagon shed has a display explaining tree rings but I’ve also become quite familiar with the space since it is ‘cover’ when the day as become rainy – a frequent occurrence this field trip season.

And then this odd gall in a cedar. I did a quick search for it when a got home. It looks like a cedar apple rust gall.

By the time I took these few pictures it was time to get focused on the business for the morning – the wheelbarrows for each group were full of tools,

the left glove and right glove bins were positioned. I got the tutorial on recognizing the plants we were to remove. And then the buses arrived!

We worked for a couple of hours. Honey suckle and wine berry were the most dominate in the area my group was assigned. We cut and unwrapped honey suckle from a small tree – saving it from being strangled and suffocated by the vine. Everyone worked on cutting wine berry to the ground and trying not to grip it to tightly since the fine tips of the thorns sometimes penetrated the gloves. The pile of culled invasives was pretty high when we finished and the students went off to have their picnic lunch – a job well done.

Four Days of Belmont Bioblitz

I spent Monday through Thursday of this week at the Belmont Bioblitz. Fifth grade students from 2 elementary schools participated on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday and Thursday it was seventh graders from a middle school. The observations the students logged into the iNaturalist app will be used to refine the Belmont Species List; the list originated from previous Bioblitz events at Belmont. All four days started our similarly – the volunteers gathering in the morning to help the staff prepare. It was quiet enough for some birds (like the nuthatch below) to be at the feeders near the nature center; the feeders would get refilled before the students arrived.

The volunteers would gather in a long line across the drive from the Manor House where the buses would eventually pull up.

Turning around - the swallows and red-winged black birds swooped over the grasses and down to the pond. The volunteers enjoyed the past bit of calm.

And then the buses arrive – almost hidden by the trees as they first come through the entrance gate.

Then more visible as they get closer. The students pour out of the buses and into groups - each with a chaperone (or 2) and 2 volunteers. The volunteers have been assigned zones where their group will focus for the duration of the morning.

Trees are easy to document although the blooms of the horse chestnut were already fading by Monday.

The leaves still were distinctive enough to make identification easy.

The pecan was a popular entry into iNaturalist – one of the native trees that produces something we eat.

Many students were surprised that there are different kinds of oaks – easy to tell by just looking at their leaves.

There were toads hanging out near the pool on the first three days – laying eggs.

They liked the wells around the pool where the water was shaded by the cover.

By the fourth day they were mostly gone and we found one further away into the trees and brushy area.

On Tuesday it rained and on Wednesday, the participants found quite a few mushrooms in several areas where the grass is mowed.

One the last day – the highlight (for me) was a lacewing one of the students managed to capture. We photographed it in a magnifying box

Then released it….it paused for a few seconds for me to get one last picture.

At the end of each day - there is hand washing and then a picnic lunch. On Monday and Thursday, the picnic was on the lawn in front of the Manor House. On Tuesday is raining and the BioBlitz picnic was inside the big tent used for weddings at Belmont. The students sat on the carpet under candeliers. The same location was used for Wednesday too since the lawn was still very soggy.

After lunch - it's time for the students to return to school on their buses...the Belmont Bioblitz field trip is over. But - the collection of pictures and descriptions in iNaturalist has grown each day of the event - quite an accomplishment.