Things I’ve Seen
May 9, 2020 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions

I’m seeing more butterflies these days. This one, which I think is a comma (Polygonia c-album,) landed on the path just in front of me one day. They winter over in leaf litter and on the undersides of logs so it would make sense that they would be one of the first to appear. I’ve also seen a few small blue butterflies, maybe half the size of this one, but I’ve yet to get one of them inside the camera. I hope I can show them to you because they’re a beautiful shade of blue.

I was weeding around some lilacs one day and all of the sudden this was there. From what I’ve seen online it appears to be a wireworm, which is a click beetle grub. Click beetles get their name from the way they click when they try to turn over if they land on their backs. There are about 60 species of click beetles but only five are plant pests. The grubs feed on plant roots but from what I’ve read they don’t do any real damage. In this photo the grubs head is the darker area in the upper left. Not seen are three pairs of legs, just behind the head.

I had to turn a picnic table over one day to clean it prior to painting it, and when I did I found this egg mass from an unknown insect.

A closer look showed that the tiny eggs looked like hen’s eggs, and most had already hatched. There must have been over a hundred of them and they were so small I could hardly tell what they were without looking at the camera screen replay.

There are still plenty of acorns left from last fall’s crop so squirrels are fat and happy. They had a mild winter, too.

All the rain we’ve had has made for some high water in streams and ponds, but one of the streams that run through the property where I work was abnormally high, so we walked its banks to see if anything was damming it up.

It was easy to see what the problem was; beavers, but what you see here is quite rare because this is an eastern hemlock tree and beavers don’t usually eat them. I’ve never seen them eat all the bark off a tree and its roots like this either, of any species.

We kept following the stream until we came to their dam and then we started taking it apart. This photo shows the dam after we had dismantled about half of it. To do the whole dam took all afternoon and it was hard work. The beavers had woven in logs and branches as big as my leg and getting them out of the dam took quite a lot of effort but it had to be done. Dammed up streams flood fields, forests and even roads. In this case this stream flows under a road, so you can’t just ignore the fact that it isn’t flowing. Depending on the size of the beaver family they can build a dam in a day or two, so we expect we’ll be visiting this spot again before long. They don’t give up easily.

All the rain water made taking wave photos at the Ashuelot River a lot of fun. If you didn’t mind the roar, that is.

There seems to be a lot of water in this post but I can’t help that; I just take photos of whatever nature shows me. At one time I thought something like this was an oil slick or some other form of pollution but several helpful readers have commented over the years that it can also be caused naturally, by decomposing vegetation and other natural phenomena.

It’s always very colorful.

White baneberry (Actaea pachypoda) is an extremely toxic plant but I love the movement that its new spring shoots have. Every time I see them I think how nice it would be to sit beside them and draw them, but I never seem to find the time. They make me think of someone contemplating a handful of pearls, which of course are actually its flower buds. Soon it will have a club shaped head of small white flowers. Native Americans brewed a tea from the roots of this plant and used it medicinally to treat pain and other ailments, but no part of it should ever be ingested. In late summer it will have bright white berries with a single black dot that give the plant its common name of doll’s eyes. The berries especially are very toxic.

Hairy fiddleheads like these belong to either cinnamon fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum) or interrupted fern (Osmundastrum claytoniana.) Since I know these ferns I know they’re interrupted ferns but normally I wouldn’t be able to tell unless I saw the spore bearing fronds. Both are beautiful right up until fall, when they turn pumpkin orange.

Lady fern fiddleheads (Athyrium filix-femina) are also up. Lady fern is the only fern I know of with brown / black scales on its stalk. This fern likes to grow in moist, loamy areas along streams and rivers. They don’t like windy places, so if you find a shaded dell where a grove of lady fern grows it’s safe to assume that it doesn’t ever get very windy there.

Greater celandine (Chelidonium majus) leaves stay green under the snow all winter and they also shed water. The plant is native to Europe and Asia but early settlers brought it with them to use medicinally, and it has found its way into all but 19 states in the U.S. Soon 4 petaled yellow flowers will appear. When I was a boy we stained our hands with the plant’s yellow sap and called it mustard. Thankfully we never ate it, because all parts of it are toxic.

This strange color belonged to the buds of a bitternut hickory tree (Carya cordiformis,) which is on the rare side here. It is said that the nuts from this tree are so bitter that even squirrels won’t eat them.

Here is the same bud in full sun, looking electric yellow. The wood is very flexible and Native Americans used it to make bows. Early settlers used the oil from the nuts in their oil lamps and to help with rheumatism.

I’ve never seen false hellebore (Veratrum viride) plants grow like they are this year. This spot usually has a few but this year there are hundreds of them.

False hellebore is a pretty thing but it is also one of the most toxic plants in the forest and if you forage for edible plants, you should know it well. In 2010 five campers in Alaska nearly died from eating its roots. Thanks to being airlifted by helicopter to a hospital they survived. There is another account of an entire family being poisoned by cooking and eating the leaves.

It’s amazing what a little sunlight can do for a maple bud…

…and new maple leaves as well.

Tiny new oak leaves were an almost impossible shade of green.

If there is just one thing I hope this posts shows it’s how beauty is all around us, and not just in the form of flowers. I love seeing flowers as much as the next person but when I see something like this beech bud unfurling I have to just stand and admire it for a while. And then I take far too many photos of it, trying to let you see what I saw. Beech bud break in spring is one of nature’s small miracles that will happen each day for the next couple of weeks. I hope everyone gets to witness it.

Art, music, the beauty of a leaf or flower; all can invite us to step outside of ourselves; to lose ourselves and walk a higher path, at least for a time. Art and music may be hard to access at the moment, but nature is always right there. Indescribable, endless beauty and deep, immense joy. These are what nature offers to those willing to receive them, and all it costs is a little time.

But you can’t dawdle too long because once those buds break it’s all about making leaves and it can happen quite fast. If you can’t get into the woods why not take a look at the trees in your own yard or neighborhood? You could be very surprised by what you find.
I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in the apple tree, and a butterfly flitted across the field, and all the leaves were calling. ~Richard le Gallienn
Thanks for stopping in. I’m hoping all of you moms out there have a very happy Mother’s Day tomorrow, and I hope you’ll have beautiful weather on your day.
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Posted in Nature, Things I've Seen | Tagged Ashuelot River, Beaver Dam, Beaver Damage, Beech Bud Break, Beech Leaves, Bitternut Hickory Bud, Canon SX40 HS, Comma Butterfly, False Hellebore, Gray Squirrel, Greater Celandine, Insect Eggs, Interrupted Fern Fiddlehead, Keene, Lady Fern Fiddlehead, Maple Bud Break, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, New maple Leaves, New Oak Leaves, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, River Wave, Spring, Swanzey New Hampshire, White Baneberry Shoot, Wireworm | 24 Comments
The only butterfly I’ve seen so far this year was a Red Admiral. Love the fern shots, the way they unfurl is a little bit magical.
I agree!
The beavers really did do a number on that hemlock. I’ve never seen them strip a tree like that either! Hopefully they will move on and find a more suitable spot to build.
We had a weekend here where it was in the mid to high 80s, which accelerated many things along. We are back to 50s and rain now.
I’m hearing 70s here by the end of the week so this sounds like a year where we go from winter right into summer.
There are people who wish the beavers would move on!
Allen, maybe this is what you were seeing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celastrina_ladon
Yes, I think that is probably the one. Thanks very much Sue!
They’re skittish little things but hopefully I’ll be able to show one here before long.
Wonderful post and such an apt quote at the end! 😉
Thanks very much Karen, I’m glad you liked it. I think I know just what Richard le Gallienn meant when he said that!
Very nice, Allen….I miss that roar of the moving waters that you have down by your river…what a treasure.
Thank you Scott. I hope you’ll find a river like it one day. It has been an endless source of wonder and enjoyment for me and I visit it often.
Alexander the Great was murdered by giving him toxic wine made from false hellebore. By the way, how large was that click beetle grub? I found one similar, maybe an inch or so long.
I didn’t know that, David. What a horrible way to die!
The click beetle grub was also about an inch to an inch and a half long. Not very big.
Your posts make me happy and make me sad. I love the pictures and knowledge that I gain. I miss my little patch of trot lilies, my hemlock grove and lunch on Little Monadnock.
Thank you Bob. I hope you’ve found plenty of new things to enjoy in your new home.
Maybe you could come back to New Hampshire and visit once in a while. I know how it is to miss a place. It’s almost like losing an old friend.
I am also an admirer of new beech leaves. I framed one of my pictures of those beautiful leaves with the light coming from the back, and it is on the wall of my living room permanently to remind me of New Hampshire Saludos Jaime
That’s great Jaime, I’m glad to hear it!
I hope all is well where you live now.
Oooo, such beautiful fiddleheads, Allen! The visit from the polar vortex certainly set things back! Spring… never a dull moment, huh? FYI, I noticed my milkweeds are barely starting to emerge (the established ones), I haven’t noticed seedlings yet. How about you?
Yes, it’s cold here and they say below freezing tonight, which will be too bad.
I’m seeing tiny seedlings where I planted the milkweeds and I’m hoping they’re milkweed seedlings. Having never seen any I won’t know for sure until they get a bit bigger. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Young beech leaves always make me think of your blog.
I’m fascinated by your eggs(?) under the table. It looks like they are scattered across the cocoon of a tussock moth. I wonder if they are actually cocoons of some parasite? Or something else? Very cool, whatever it is.
Thank you Sara. I called them eggs because that’s exactly what they looked like, but I really don’t know what the scientific term would be.
The mass looked like it was once encased in coarse “hairs” and I could still see some of them around the edges, so tussock moth would be a good place to start the investigation. I see their cocoons regularly but I’ve never seen inside one. Maybe if one was cut open there would be a clutch of these eggs inside.
Those of us who love and enjoy nature are always blessed but now more than ever.
Yes, I hope people will take advantage of any extra free time by getting out and enjoying nature. Spring is the best time!
Wonderful wave photograph and the dam the beavers built was some construction. Sadly our weather tomorrow will not be good, much colder than today.
Thank you Susan. We are having the same weather, I’m afraid. It’s only 33 degrees here.