Waseeka

I'm back. I've been fiddling with the pages for the last day or so, and should be back to posting as soon as it cools off enough to make it worth sitting at the computer with the pictures on it to post.

Yesterday I wandered about in the Upton/Hopkinton area. I started off at Upton State Forest which was mostly a bust. The water had dropped too much so any dragonflies were far from shore. I then looked at my maps and decided to try Waseeka since it wasn't too far away. On the way there I passed a small pond recreation area and thought I might want to visit it on the way back.

Waseeka was nice. However it is small and there is no map panel. I also wouldn't try getting a very big vehicle in their parking lot. I followed the trail straight, ignoring the off branches and walked along the earthen dam. The deer flies were awful in spots.

A very annoyed osprey spent most of the time I was there circling my head screaming. he didn't dive bomb, just circled, so I mostly ignored it. There were plenty of dragonflies there, including a bunch of widow skimmers and amberwings. neither were particularly accommodating, though i got one shot of a widow skimmer male.

There were also a bunch of very calm frogs. I guess when you get that fat there isn't much point in fleeing.

The best critter find was after I left Waseeka. I stopped at that Recreation area on Main street in Hopkinton. It is just a town managed pond as far as I can tell. However there were halloween pennants hanging out next to the parking lot.

Another Dragonfly

One more dragonfly from Skunknett River. No id yet. Edited to Add ID: Female Spangled Skimmer - Libellula cyanea.

Green Damselfly

Last week during my unplanned vacation I got in two hikes. At Broadmoor where I picked up more ticks then I could believe (easily 15-20 over the course of my walk) there were a few accommodating damselflies. The dragonflies were much too flighty. Edited to Add ID: Male Eastern Forktail - Ischnura posita.

I'm Alive

So yeah, I've been missing for about 2 months now, okay I waited a few days so I could get it to exactly two months.

About 6 weeks ago I picked up a full-time temp job that has been keeping me quite busy on weekdays. It starts early enough I wasn't able to hike, and I really dislike hiking on weekends (everyone else is). So I've been working, and since it is all computer based I've been coming home with very little interest in playing on a computer.

I took a tiny hike on Monday, and saw just about nothing barring the irritating insects that didn't seem to be biting, but really liked circling my head. It is making me really miss having a job that I didn't have to be at until 10:30 AM that was located less then ten minutes from a very nice Audubon sanctuary. You never realize how good something is until it's gone. Let's not forget the dress code, clothes, just about any kind.

I spent all last Sunday gardening, as since I've got a chunk of rent to pay off to my mother, I have a yard to seed with grass. Since I'll be seeding in and around the garden (this is the prelim part of the yard, eventually I get to do the whole thing and hopefully get it thick enough it can survive the dogs), everything has to be in the ground. A few of these plants have been hanging around in pots for more than two years. Last year I was a very lazy gardener.

Some stuff is finally blooming and I'm going to get back into posting garden pics.

Moose Hill from Tuesday

The snow is very slowly releasing it's grip on the ground. I got there a little late around 8 AM and the ice layer across all the trails was still mostly frozen. next time I will remember to bring my ice grippers. I didn't sink much even though the snow was still 12" deep in a few spots. The crust is now quite thick. The walk out wasn't too bad, but 2 hours later the ice layer had started to melt and made the main trail back quite slick.

The boardwalk is still closed, but you get to walk all the way to it before you find out. I wonder if it's covered with snow, or if the refreezing actually damaged it this winter. It's my favorite section, so it being continually closed is a let down. I'll have to remember next time and wander down to the pond and stream across the street.

It's maple sap harvesting season again. This year there was a trash can being used at one point. I kind of prefer the metal buckets, though there isn't really much of a difference.

This is the same place I captured graceful shadows on the snow a few weeks ago. The snow has since melted in strange places and seems more like the surface of the moon.

I wonder if all the short pine trees will bounce back from spending months stuck to the ground. I did see a number of larger trees snapped in half across teh paths, so maybe being bendy isn't so bad.

The trails all had leaves and branches embedded in them. My guess is the sun warms them up just enough for them to slowly melt down in the snow. The ice cocooning them however was quite nice.

Closeup of nice ice.

More ice.

Near the end of my trek I spotted this curious fellow. I have never seen a spider out in snow before. It was alive and walked away while I was watching. I imagine it isn't very happy about being out right now, but it didn't seem to bothered.

There were plenty of vague footprints to sort through. Most of the prints were obviously people, but I spotted a few deer tracks, possibly coyote, and raccoon as well.

Daniel Webster - Back in January

Back in January when we were still getting weekly snow storms I drove out to Daniel Webster. I think I posted one photo from that trip then forgot about it. Now that I've moved my daily photo posts (see above) I need to get back to the hiking.

It was quite cold that day and I waited until almost noon to go out. Obviously this makes the pictures not spectacular, but my car can be iffy of snow and I wanted to let the plows clear the roads. I apparently didn't wait long enough as several roads in Marshfield were still covered in packed snow. At Danial Webster the parking lot had just been plowed and a woman and her daughter were shoveling out the entry building. The daughter actually asked if I was a biologist or something since I had snow shoes and had been the only person silly enough to show up. I dislike breaking trail. The main reason being it's exhausting. I prefer a slightly broken trail, so walking back wasn't too bad. The snow was drifting rather impressively however and within an hour my entry prints had been erased in several places. I do wish I had managed to get a photo of the blowing snow, but the angles were off.

I didn't see much in the way of wild life, a few standard winter birds and not much else. There weren't even any deer, but that is likely due to the time of day. The snow was deep enough the boardwalks were almost obscured. I missed go on my standard Secret Trail as I wasn't sure it would be accessible. The normal entrance to it was covered in snowy branches, and walking across the field to find out it was impassible would have been a waste.

The snow had piled up in plenty of strange shapes over weeks of freezing, thawing and wind.

It's amazing how snow can look so much like desert.

random note: I hate the posting interface here and I'm going to have to start doing these in HTML.

Daily Photo - Whoops

Missed a day so here's two. Both from July of 2009 at Broadmoor.

Orange fungus Dragonfly from before I owned a flash.

Daily Photo - So Much Snow

Path at Daniel Webster, I had to turn around. This is the newest 8 inches of snow. I did get to break trail as even at noon no one else had shown up to snowshoe.

Daily Photo - Coon Tracks

From the barn at Moose Hill last Saturday.

Daily Photo - Snow Shadows

See I went outside. This is from Saturday's snowshoeing at Moose Hill.

Daily Photo - Snow Fleas

It was nice and warm out today at Moose Hill. Around 9 AM these guys started appearing.

Daniel Webster - Freezing Dawn

At 5:45 AM my alarm went off. After hitting snooze a number of times I got up. I quickly checked the weather and saw 30 F. Well, that's cold, but I should be fine. By 6:17 I was in the car. I forgot my hand warmers, which turned out to be a disaster, and that knit hat hat I took is not as good as my wool Bula one. When I arrived I was surprised that defrosting my windows had actually caused frost to form on the inside of my car's back windows. This should have been a sign. it was bitterly, excruciatingly cold the entire time i was there. It was worse up near the parking lot, but by the time I left I couldn't really move my fingers and felt like I was walking balanced on two bricks. That said I did get some nice pictures. A few days ago I pulled out my camera's manual again to fiddle with live View. I know people had thought it was such a great feature when I bought the camera, but I'd never actually used it. in a nutshell if you're shooting from a tripod at a stationary object it increases your ability to focus by like a million times. This led to lots of frost pics. Live View can get stuff like this, rather than by chance which is how I was doing it. Out of 300 or so photos today only a handful are out of focus ones of frost. Admittedly I also have the camera on a two second timer and had the mirror lockup enabled. Right in the middle of me freezing my butt off I got to listen to numerous close by shotgun blasts. A minute later I heard "Did you get that doe?" out of the woods ahead of me, and I saw a guy in orange walk by. I'm not sure exactly where Daniel Webster ends, but that seemed mighty close to conservation land. I looked it up and shotgun deer hunting ends in 3 days, then it's primitive firearms... I heard a few from farther away later. Someone also put a little feeder on the viewing window and some accommodating tufted titmice posed for me. On the way home my mother texted me asking how cold I was. It turns out it was actually 7 F out. I just lightly check the weather and was actually looking at the high for the day. What did I learn? Always bring the good hat. Hand Warmers are essential. Always drag the tripod (I actually got a good distance from the car before going back for it this time. I nearly whacked myself in the head since I'm iffy at spotting critters at a distance my lenses are capable of, so that means mostly frost subjects at Daniel Webster.)

Daily Photo - Frost

Another from Moose Hill last week.

Moose Hill Jaunt

I got up this morning, and though I didn't make it out as early as I wanted, I did get out early. there had been no frost at my house, but the parking lot at Moose hill had a number of nice arrangements. i snuck up on three deer with my new obsessive walking method, also known as paying attention to what you're stepping on and stopping every few steps to glance around and listen. The weirdly warm temperatures we've been having appear to be tricking a few of the plants. The forsythia was blooming in patches and the skunk cabbage was visible in the marsh. I flipped the camera upside down to use my flash fro below on the next pic. I took a bunch in the standard configuration, but was getting very harsh shadows. Turning the camera upside down eliminated the problem. it made clicking the shutter a bit awkward however. The boardwalk was very thinly coated in ice. Not quite enough to slip, but every few steps one food might slide where you didn't expect. Winter view of the swamp boardwalk. After a few snows those nice pale grasses will be flat.

All in all an enjoyable walk.

Foggy Broadmoor

I woke up early this morning. Then I shut off the alarm. Then I woke again still fairly early. I've been trying to go out at dawn, but I keep worrying about the traffic since dawn is currently around 7, so psych myself out and go back to bed. My goal was to get out of the house by 8 AM. I managed that but had to go back for my tripod. I picked Broadmoor as my destination as I could get there on back roads. Halfway there I crossed the Charles River and drove through some lovely banks of fog. Thankfully the fog persisted all the way to Broadmoor. There are plenty of tiny spider webs. Some of the trees are changing colors. Even the reflections were nice. Grass in sunlight. More leaf veins. This would be the lowpoint of my hike. In the wildlife meadow a strange bug landed on my hand. Since it looked like a tick on first glance I shook my hand and whacked it against things. Ticks bring out my irrationality. I got it off my hand, but it started crawling on my shirt. I saw it only had 6 legs so couldn't be a tick, but it certainly looked like one. A little reaseach when I got home led to a Deer Louse Fly or relative. I didn't find out if they bite, but they do have nice hooks on all their feet, which explains why I had so much trouble getting rid of it.