Something I like to do every now and then is watch the waves on the Ashuelot River, but we’ve been in a drought most of the summer so there haven’t been any to watch. Finally last week 4 1/2 inches of rain fell in a day and there were some serious waves after that. The river has a rhythm and its waves form at fairly regularly spaced intervals and I find it challenging to see if I can get shots of the waves as they form. It’s not as easy as it sounds but it can be done if you can tune out everything but yourself and the river.
Of course since I saw the Ashuelot River at bank full I thought waterfalls would be roaring but as 40 foot falls in this photo shows, I was wrong. The beaver pond that feeds this stream must have been low enough to absorb all the rainfall without having much effect on the outflow.
I find a lot of blasting holes drilled through boulders. There is nothing unusual about drilling and blasting stone here in the granite state but I often find these boulders out in the woods where you wouldn’t expect a steam or air powered drill would be able to go, and that’s odd. This example was out in the middle of nowhere but was too perfect to have been drilled by hand with a sledge hammer and star drill, so it had to have been machine made. If I’d had a golf ball in my pocket I could have rolled it right through this hole.
I interrupted this chipmunk as he ran about busily looking for seeds to stuff his cheeks with and he was clearly not happy about that, so I took a quick couple of photos and let him get on with his work. Chipmunks will watch you pretty closely in the woods and will often follow along beside you, making a chipping or chucking sound to tell the other animals and birds that you’re in the neighborhood. Chickadees do the same thing.
I found a single example of a concentric boulder lichen (Porpidia crustulata) a few years ago and hadn’t seen one since until recently. Though it’s very hard to find it’s easy to identify; the body (thallus) of the lichen is always ashy gray and its black spore bearing bodies (Apothecia) grow in concentric rings around the lichen’s center. It’s not one of the prettiest lichens but it is one of the rarest in this area and I was happy to see it.
Dog lichens aren’t rare but they are unusually big for a lichen; I’ve seen hand size examples. Lichens like water and can often be found growing beside or even among water retaining mosses as this one has. Because it’s been so dry it’s been a rough summer for water loving mosses and lichens but they are very patient and simply sit and wait for rain. The 4 1/2 inches of rain we had last week has perked them right up and this dog lichen was pliable once again instead of crisp. If you want to know what one feels like just pinch your earlobe. The lichen is thinner but it feels much the same.
Some trees have beautiful ancient runes scribbled on their bark in the form of script lichens. The light colored part is the body of the lichen and the darker “script” is where it releases its spores. There are 39 species of script lichens in North America and many more throughout the world, and their most important identification characteristic is their squiggly apothecia. I’ve seen examples that have apothecia that all run horizontally or vertically, but most seem random like those in the photo. I think it would take the better part of a lifetime just to identify the 39 species in North America. This photo has been enlarged so everything seen here would fit behind a dime with room to spare.
Mosses appreciated the rain. This beautiful rose moss (Rhodobryum roseum) was very dry and brown the last time I saw it. It grows on a limestone boulder so it must get the heat that the stone absorbs from the sun as well as from the sun itself. I know of only one place to find this moss.
Rose moss gets its common name from the way that each plant looks like a tiny rose blossom. At this magnification some of the leaves look as if they’ve been sprinkled with gold dust. Spore production takes place in the center of each small “blossom.”
Another moss that I can find in only one place is stair step moss (Hylocomium splendens.) In the right kind of light its leaves are somewhat shiny and that leads to another common name: glittering wood moss. It is also called splendid feather moss and I’m sure I don’t have to explain how it came by that name. This is a tough moss that grows in boreal forests into the Arctic. It is considered an indicator of undisturbed, stable soil though I find it growing in soil that has built up on the top of a stone.
You can see a bit of the glitter in stair step moss leaves in this photo. The name stair step moss comes from the way each new branch steps up from the middle of the older branch. It is said that this moss grows a new branch each year and its age can be revealed by counting the branches. If true that would mean that this example was at least 4 years old.
Polypody ferns (Polypodium virginanum) are producing spores and each of its spore producing sporangia looks like a tiny basket full of flowers. This is the time of year to be looking at the undersides of ferns fronds. How and where the sporangia grow are important parts of an accurate identification for some.
I think this puffball is an example of the common earth ball (Scleroderma citrinum,) but I’m not certain of that. It’s one that I’ve never seen before and I can’t come up with an exact match for it, either in my mushroom books or online. It was bigger than many puffballs I see; maybe 5 inches long by 3 wide.
Whatever its name is this puffball was a beautiful thing, and studying it took me out of myself for a time. As I look at it now it reminds me of an aerial view of a village. With yellow roads.
But when is a puffball not a puffball?
Answer: When it is a slime mold. Wolf’s milk slime mold is also called toothpaste slime because of the consistency of its inner plasmodial material. It’s usually pink but this example was orange. I’ve only found one example where the plasmodium was pasty like toothpaste. It’s usually more liquid like the above example. As it ages it will turn into grayish powdery spores.
There are other slime molds to be seen at this time of year as well, like this beautiful orange example which I believe is Hemitrichia calyculata. It has gone from its moving plasmodial feeding stage to the production of fruiting bodies called sporangium, which are seen in this photo. Each tiny sphere sits atop a whitish stalk and there it will stay, possibly changing color as it ages and begins spore production. These examples grew on an old fallen hemlock.
I thought I’d have a nice shot of Canada geese flying south in a V formation for you but by the time I was done fumbling around with my camera they had turned and all I saw was a line.
These two didn’t seem to want any part of flying south, or anywhere else for that matter. After all it was 72 degrees and the colors were mesmerizing.
No, you didn’t accidentally flip over to the NASA website. This 260 ton, 82 foot diameter dish antenna lives here in the woods of New Hampshire. It is one of the antennas that make up the Very Long Baseline Array, which is made up of 10 antennas that stretch across the country from New Hampshire west to Hawaii and south to the Virgin Islands. All 10 antennas function as a single giant antenna some 5000 miles wide and produce high resolution images of galaxies and quasars billions of light years away. The array is so sensitive it can measure details equivalent to being able to see a football on the surface of the moon.
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. ~Marcus Aurelius
Thanks for coming by.
I was lucky enough to see chipmunks and chickadees in Canada but not quick enough to capture them on film. I saw a few interesting fungi too but I’m still going through my photos so it will be a while before I post them.
I’m glad you got to see them, anyway. They are fast!
I’m looking forward to seeing the fungi!
That rose moss is beautiful…and the holes in the granite are fascinating. I used to find similar drillings in Little Cottonwood Canyon up in Salt Lake….
Thanks Scott. I’m not surprised about the holes you saw in Utah. There used to be a lot of mining going on out there, just like here.
I wonder how many of us reached up and pinched our earlobes? I did! Great post and wonderful shots!!
Thanks Martha!
Fascinating, as always! The Hemitrichia calculate looks like salmon eggs.
I love the pair of geese in the water. Terrific colors!
Thanks Montucky! Yes, that slime mold does look like salmon eggs but each sphere is probably about 1/20th the size. They’re tiny little things.
When I saw that shot of the geese I thought it looked faked so I actually toned down the colors some. They were unbelievably vibrant!
I bet that the array doesn’t see anything half as interesting as the things that you have showed us today. I like your river wave shot in particular.
Thank you. I’ve never seen any output from the array but it must be online so I’ll have to look into it. Nebulas and galaxies forming can be extremely beautiful.
It was a perfect day for waves that day. The river has already quieted down again so there won’t be anymore until it rains again.
Varied and informative! Your posts are always so interesting and I learn so much. Thanks!
You’re welcome and thank you Eliza, I’m glad to hear you say that!
Congratulations on capturing that curling wave! This whole post is absolutely fascinating! I have seen puff balls but never an earth ball though we have at least 4 different ones in this country. I think almost every sentence that Marcus Aurelius wrote could be a good quote!
Thank you Clare. I never say how many failed attempts I’ve had with wave photos, but it’s a lot!
One odd thing about that puffball is how I can’t find a single photo of another one that looks exactly like it, so my identification could be way off.
I have a book on Plato, Epictetus, and The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and I’ve always found the section on Marcus Aurelius the most interesting. I agree that almost every sentence he wrote could be a good quote. He was far ahead of his time.
Yes he was. I’ve just looked at my ID guide again and see we have Leopard Earthballs (Scleroderma areolatum) some of which are marked like your earthball but they are much smaller. Your find is very special. I am glad you saw it and photographed it when you did.
Thank you Clare for trying to find that puffball. I’m glad to know that at least I’m in the right neighborhood. I’ll try to find out more about it as time goes on. I’m glad that I found it too. It was very visible in the woods.
I am not likely to find it you can’t! But I hope you do eventually – it is always nice to put a label on things I find.
I agree. I’m sure I’ll find it eventually. It has taken years to identify some of the things you see on this blog so it might not happen right away!
🙂
What a fascinating blog! I particularly liked the puffball. I haven’t seen one like it here.
Thanks! I’ve never seen another puffball like that one either. It was quite big.
It looked big in the picture.
Stunning photos! I was not aware of that composite of antennas across North America linked to the one in Hawaii. Very interesting!
Thank you Sue. Yes, if you mean the antenna in Mauna Kea, that’s part of the array. They’re also in Arizona, California, Washington, Texas, Iowa, St. Croix, and two in New Mexico at Los Alamos and Pie Town, wherever that is!
We share a fascination with wave watching. 🙂 The waterfall may not have been roaring, but at least it’s a waterfall, which we are sadly lacking in lower Michigan.
I love seeing and learning about the smaller things that you find in the woods, like the lichens and slime molds, but I haven’t had the time this year to do much looking for them around here. Just too many other things taking up my time, so I’m glad that you haven’t run out of new ones to post. Besides, you know something about them, all I know is what I’ve learned from our posts.
I really envy your waves on lake Michigan though Jerry. Those are real waves!
I shouldn’t complain about that waterfall but they’ve all been trickling for months now. It’s like someone turned the water off.
I’m having time problems with my new job too because I drive 40 minutes one way and that means it’ll be dark when I get home soon. That means very few photos during the week so this blog might be forced to change some.
I’ll still be in the woods as much as I can though. I’m glad you and others like the things I stumble across.
If I didn’t have the books that I have I wouldn’t know much about them either!
Interesting shots, really love the stream with the tumbling water…The chipmunk is such great fun.
Thank you Charlie. That chipmunk sure gave me a sour look!
Fascinating shot of the puffball! You’re fortunate that the water runs so clear after a rain. If we had that much in Ohio, the water would resemble chocolate milk and wouldn’t make for a very attractive picture.
That puffball was very different than others I’ve seen!
Actually the Ashuelot River also ran brown for a day or two but had cleared up by the time I got around to taking its photo. It was very muddy, in fact. A lot of soil was washed into it.
Wonderful collection. Some really fascinating shots here.
Thanks very much Melanie!
Thanks again for the beautiful pictures and interesting stories. You really enjoy nature and we can too by your side!
You’re welcome, and thank you Jaime. I do enjoy nature and I hope this blog gets other people doing the same. I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
The script lichen is really beautiful in it’s randomness. I’ve been chattered at by many a chipmunk over the years. They do have quite a way of letting the entire forest know you are there!
Thanks Laura! I like script lichens too and I’ve always had fun watching chipmunks. We have hundreds of them running around at my new job and some are quite tame.
Like the chipmunk picture. Full of character. And several of the others are quite special too.
Thanks Ben. That was an impatient chipmunk! Though they hibernate they wake every few days to eat so they need quite a storehouse of food and are very busy right now. I could tell this one wanted to hurry me down the path.
What a lot of interesting things you have seen. I admired the picture of the wave, most striking, and particularly enjoyed the script lichens and the chipmunk.
Thank you Susan. I like taking photos of waves to see if I can capture the motion.
The script lichens are among the most interesting, in my opinion. That chipmunk really had an attitude!