Willard Pond

I was finally able to visit Willard Pond in Hancock last week. The weekend forecast was for rain so Friday afternoon off I went to one of the most beautiful places I know. It is here at Willard Pond where in the fall, nature pulls out all the stops.

That’s where we’re going; to that hillside behind the boulder. It is an unusual forest that is made up of mostly beeches and oaks which at this time of year are at their most colorful. I’ve come here on the last weekend in October for a few years now and I haven’t ever been disappointed.

The trail is one person wide and follows the shoreline of the pond close to the water because the hillside comes right down to the pond. It is rocky and full of tree roots, and it is muddy in spots, so you need good stout hiking boots here. This isn’t the place for sneakers or flip flops.

Beeches turn from green to yellow and then as the yellow fades reds, oranges and finally browns appear.

There is color everywhere here, including on the forest floor. This photo shows yellow beech and maple, red-brown oak, and purple maple leaf viburnums.

From a photography point of view this place is difficult because you can’t ever back up for a wide shot. The pond is right there behind you, so you have to do what you can. You’re literally immersed in the forest that you’re trying to take photos of.

This view looks back on the trail we just followed. It comes through the break between the two boulders over there on the left. There is no real climbing unless you chose to climb Bald Mountain, but you do have to climb over stones and possibly an occasional fallen tree to follow the shoreline trail.

Thankfully you don’t have to climb over anything like this. There are a few garage size boulders here and this is one of them. They tumbled down the hillside to the water’s edge at some point in the past or they could have been left right where they are by a melting glacier.

You might be fooled into thinking these were turkey tail fungi but turkey tails are usually several different colors. In spite of its name the multicolor gill polypore (Lenzites betulina) shown here is varying shades of tan and really not that colorful.

Another way to tell the difference between a turkey tail and this fungus is the appearance of gills on the underside. Turkey tails have pores, never gills. There are a few other gilled polypores but this is the only one with white flesh. It also has true gills, which in this case were very dry and wrinkled, in spite of all the rain we’ve had.

No matter what other interesting and beautiful things you might see here at this time of year the real story is the forest itself, and it’s hard to keep your eyes on anything else. I stumbled a few times because I had my head in the trees instead of watching where I was going.

But I didn’t fall into any of the streams that run from the hillside to the pond. There are a few bridges, some just planks and others like this one more elaborate.

I sat here for a while, enjoying the happy sounds the little stream made. I didn’t think anyone would mind; though there were a few cars in the parking lot I only saw one couple the whole time I was here.

Lots of colorful fallen leaves were on the pond bottom. Most looked like maple leaves which had fallen probably a week or more before my visit.

A very determined birch tree was bent completely in half but still kept growing new branches.

Another fallen birch had chaga fungi (Inonotus obliquus) growing all along it. Chaga has been used medicinally in Russia, China, Korea and Japan for many centuries and it is said to be packed with vitamins and minerals. In Siberia it is said to be the secret to long life and it has recently shown promise in cancer research, reducing the size of tumors. The fungi look like burnt, brittle pieces of charcoal.

There was a much larger one on a nearby birch stump. It really does look burnt. Chaga fungi are parasitic and grow on birch and other species. It is black because it contains large amounts of melanin, which is a naturally occurring dark brown to black pigment that colors hair, skin and the irises of the eyes of humans and animals. It is also responsible for the tanning of skin that is exposed to sunlight. I can’t guess what it tastes like.

I’ve never tried very hard to identify these mushrooms but I don’t really need to know their name to enjoy them. They always remind me of puffy soufflés, just out of the oven.

The shadow of a dead bracken fern fell on a stone and reminded me of the humped back skeleton of a triceratops.

The beauty of this place is off the charts and you can’t help being taken up in it; swallowed by it. The towering trees, huge boulders and views of infinity make you feel so small. But feeling small isn’t always such a bad thing. It’s the same feeling that I imagine would come over me if I were in a great cathedral.

Someone had used fallen branches to make a peace sign in the hollow of a tree. I thought it was appropriate, since there is plenty of peace to be found here.

Many times these posts write themselves in my mind as I follow along a trail but this one did not, so I sat here on this wooden bench for a while thinking about what I could write about this place. I quickly realized how hard it would be to explain what a place as beautiful as this can do to a person. I went from amazement to wonder to astonishment, and there was nothing else. It was as if everything else had been stripped away; all the petty worries and cares were gone, and when it comes down to it I suppose that’s why we nature lovers do what we do. These days they call it “being in the moment,” but I never knew “the moment” could be hours long. In any event it was gloriously beautiful and I hope you’ll be able to find a place just like this one.

An autumn forest is such a place that once entered you never look for the exit. ~Mehmet Murat ildan

Thanks for coming by.

 

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Winter Isn’t Going Anywhere

This year winter seems determined to overstay its welcome and has brought record low temperatures and record high snowfall amounts. Even though we’ve had mini thaws where the temperature rose to 40 degrees for a day or two, most of the time we have been well below freezing during the day and below zero at night. Because of that the snow that has fallen is melting very slowly.

 

The snow in the woods is knee deep, which makes going rough. I recently bought some gaiters to keep my pant legs dry and make life a little easier, but another good storm will mean snowshoes for sure. One way to make it easier to get around is to look for south facing spots like that in the photo above where the snow has pulled back some. These are great places to look for mosses and other plants that stay green throughout winter.

 

Ferns might look fragile but evergreen ferns like this intermediate wood fern (Dryopteris intermedia) aren’t. This one was growing in the midst of an ice sheet. There aren’t many ferns that are evergreen in New England so winter is a good time to hone one’s identification skills by getting to know them. This one is very similar to the marginal wood fern (Dryopteris marginalis). Both the words “intermediate” and “marginal” in the fern’s common names refer to the placement of the spore bearing structures (sori) found on the undersides of the leaves.

 

Another fern commonly seen in winter is the evergreen Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides). This one is easy to identify by its leaflets that resemble little Christmas stockings. The narrow fine teeth that line the edges of the leaflets and the short leaf stalks can also be seen in this photo. When seen at this time of year it is obvious that evergreen Christmas fern has had its branches flattened by the weight of the snow because they splay out all over the ground. Once new fronds emerge these will brown and die off.

 

Winter is also a good time to learn how to identify trees by their bark since there is no foliage in the way. A tree with light to dark, mottled gray bark with diamond shaped marks in it is a young white poplar (Populus alba). The diamond shapes are the tree’s lenticels, which are air pores. The bark on white poplars can be very white at times like a birch, but it is usually light gray when young. Older trees have darker gray, furrowed bark at their bases.  White poplar was introduced from central Europe and Asia in 1748. It can now be found in every state except Alaska, Arizona, and Hawaii.

  

Mosses are easy to find in winter if you look at logs and stones where the snow has retreated. This Hedwigia ciliata moss with its white leaf tips is usually found growing on boulders and is very easy to identify. Common names include Hedwig’s fringeleaf Moss, Hedwig’s rock moss, and Fringed Hoar-moss. Johann Hedwig was a German botanist who studied mosses in the eighteenth century. He is called the father of bryology and lends his name to this and many other mosses.

 

This moss has never appeared on this blog in this dry state before. Long-leaved tail moss (Anomodon attenuates) is also called tree apron moss because it is quite common on the lower part of tree trunks. When wet its leaves stand out from the stem and it takes on a more feathery appearance and looks completely different than it does in the photo. This is a good example of why serious moss hunters do so after it rains.

 

This is another first appearance on this blog. Curly thatch moss (Dicranoweissia cirrata) grows on rotting logs and stumps and is very small, with leaves that curl when dry. After a rain its leaves will straighten out and this moss will look very different than it does in this photo, which is why I’ve found it so hard to identify. Tiny growths on the leaves called gemmae are intended to break off to perpetuate the species.

 

White cushion moss (Leucobryum glaucum) can appear silvery, white, bluish green or grayish green but it always forms a thick cushion and stands out from the mosses that might surround it. It likes plenty of water and shade and grows on rotting logs or on stone when there is enough soil. It is probably the easiest of all the mosses to identify.

 

March is a month known for its wind and anyone who studies nature can take advantage of that fact, because there are all kinds of things falling from the trees at this time of year. This beard lichen (Usnea) was lying on top of the snow and at 4 1/2 inches long is the longest I’ve ever seen. It is said that if you take a single strand of this lichen and gently pull it apart lengthwise you’ll find a white cord inside, but it must take extreme magnification to see it because I’ve never been able to.

  

Another bracket fungus that mimics the common turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) is the multicolor gill polypore (Lenzites betulina).  Since turkey tails have pores and these have gills they are hard to confuse. Multicolor gill polypores start life very white but turn gray as they age. They have some zoning like turkey tails and are often covered with green algae.

 

This is an extreme close-up of the underside of the multicolor gill polypore in the previous photo. These are clearly not pores.

NOTE: Thanks to help from a knowledgeable reader and more experience identifying fungi I now know this to be the Thin-maze flat polypore (Daedaleopsis confragosa). The photo does actually show pores but they’re elongated and can resemble gills. I’m sorry if my incorrect identification caused any confusion.

  

In my last post I talked about bud how scales enclose and protect buds throughout winter. Not all plants use bud scales for protection though; some like the hobblebush in this photo have naked buds.  Instead of using bud scales plants with naked buds often use fine hairs like those that can be seen on the fuzzy leaves and stems of the hobblebush. If there isn’t a flower bud between them the tiny naked leaves almost look like hands clasped in prayer. I like to imagine that they’re praying for spring like the rest of us, but I don’t know for sure.

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. ~Willa Cather

Thanks for stopping in. Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead 1 hour tonight!

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January Thaw

 

This winter has been colder than we’ve seen in several years, but the coldest winters always seem to come with a short break called a January thaw, and we’ve had ours this year. I think of it as a taste of spring in the dead of winter, and it is always welcome. January thaws usually last for about a week and temperatures rise an average of 10° F higher than those of the previous week. Spring has always been my favorite season so for me a thaw is also a tease that lights the pilot light of spring fever. By the end of February the fever will be strong.

 

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but that’s ice on the trail. I was glad that I wore my Yak Trax because there was nowhere you could go to avoid it except back the way you came.

 

At first glance you might think these were turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor), but it’s important to look at the underside of mushrooms when trying to identify them. Though they aren’t always shown on this blog I always try to get photos of their spore producing surfaces and any other features that might help in identify them.

The undersides of the mushrooms in the previous photo show that these fungi can’t be turkey tails because turkey tails have pores, not gills. Though many bracket fungi have gills, the multicolor gilled polypore (Lenzites betulina) shown in the photos is the only one that has both gills and white flesh.  All of the other gilled bracket fungi have reddish brown flesh, which makes identifying the multicolor gilled polypore much easier than most. I also carry a pen and a small notebook to note things like white or brown flesh but a lot of times I don’t use it because I don’t like harming the mushrooms. I like to leave the woods exactly as I found them if I can, so the next person can see the same things I’ve seen.

 

Evergreen intermediate wood fern (Dryopteris intermedia) looks fragile, but it can take a lot of weather. I found these examples growing in a crack in a room sized boulder. This is one of just a handful of true evergreen ferns. I usually expect to find another evergreen fern called polypody or rock cap ferns (Polypodium vulgare) growing on boulders but I didn’t see any in this area.

 

The only time nature seems to be in a hurry is when snow melt rushes downhill. There was a lot of rushing going on this day.

 

All that water had to go somewhere and with the soil still frozen a lot of it puddled up in low spots in the woods. Mini ponds like the one in the photo could be seen everywhere.  Many were about the size of back yard skating rinks and once re-frozen they would have been great to skate on.

 

Along the Ashuelot River the ice shelves hanging out over the water were collapsing under their own weight. Not a good time to find yourself accidentally standing on one of these!

 

Jelly creps (Crepidotus mollis) are small, quarter sized “winter mushrooms” that like to grow on hardwood logs. They are also called soft slipper mushrooms and feel kind of spongy and flabby, much like your ear lobe.

 

The gills of the jelly crep are soft and turn from whitish yellow to brown as they age. You can see how these mushrooms grow in overlapping tiers in this photo.

Red maple flower buds (Acer rubrum) are just waiting for the signal. These are one of my favorite early spring flowers and I’m looking forward to seeing them again. The flowers, twigs, leaf stems, seeds, and autumn foliage of this tree all come in varying shades of red.

The sun came out,
And the snowman cried.
His tears ran down
On every side.
His tears ran down
Till the spot was cleared.
He cried so hard
That he disappeared.
~ Margaret Hillert, January Thaw

Thanks for coming by.

 

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