Wildflowers and Bugs

Mary was running some errands today and it left me unsupervised long enough to wander some overgrown fields with my camera. While many of the flowers in our home gardens are "showy", we sometimes lose sight of the origins of many of our garden flowers and overlook the fine details of wildflowers.


Wild Rose


Eastern daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) Aster family


Buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus)


Northern Dewberry (Rubus flagellaris) Common Name: Blackberry


Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) Pea family - Can you find the small ant?


Some garden flowers will go wild if left along. We've had Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) growing along the driveway to our barn but never planted it.


Another color of Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus)


Not only do people find wildflowers attractive, many of the insects depend on them for food.

Sunsets

We've had a lot of interesting weather this year and sometimes it creates a nice sunset. I often head to our cabin in the evening to watch for deer but sometimes take photos of the sunsets.

Garden Fawn

It's looking like a bumper crop of fawns this year. Mary was up early this morning transplanting flowers and found a new "garden gnome" in her shade garden behind our house.



This fawn looked to be only a couple of days old.

Kids are Kids ... Even if They're Bear Cubs

Several of the neighbors on Joyce Road have reported seeing a mother bear with five (5) cubs and Jim and Mary Pickering have some pictures from a game camera to share.

Just like most kids, it's hard for the mother to interrupt play time.



Look mom ... no hands ...



and now for the dismount ... a double back flip ...



Peace and quiet ...

Wildflowers

While walking around our fields this time of year there is the smell of perfume in the air. After looking for the source of the fragrance I realized it was coming from one of the most invasive plants on our property, multiflora rose. Introduced from Japan in 1886, this member of the rose family grows in dense thickets and replaces the surrounding vegetation.



Because of its many blossoms, an individual plant may produce up to 500,000 seeds per year.



Other wildflowers may not smell as nice as multiflora rose, but they are easier to live with.

Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum)
Other common names: Devil's Paintbrush


Yellow Hawkweed (Hieracium pratense)
Other common names: King Devil


Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria L.)


Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis)

Fawn in the grass

The hay in the field continues to grow taller, making it harder to find this year's fawns. Yesterday afternoon we returned to the same location where I found a newborn fawn two weeks ago and had a fawn jump up a few feet from us in the hay.

I returned to the same location again this morning and found this fawn hiding in the tall hay.



I'm not sure if this is the same fawn but it didn't hang around to pose for photos.

Wesauking Pipeline Survey

A crew from A-1 Surveying of Laceyville was in the neighborhood placing survey markers for the Wesauking pipeline.



The Wesauking pipeline start south of the JOYCE ROAD well pad and cross the township road just above our farm property and continue west to the GUNN well pad on Elliot Road.



Map of Wesauking pipeline (blue line).

Ribbit ... Ribbit ...

I was at our pond this afternoon planting some ornamental (super hot) peppers, something the deer won't eat, when I heard this splash at the water's edge. A large frog had taken an interest in my gardening and wanted a closer look. This frog, unlike the others in the pond, let me place the camera within a foot of it. The black dot in the very center of the frog's eye is the reflection of the camera.

Grouse Chicks

As a followup to the May 22nd post of a Grouse Nest that Jason Abell found, I returned to the nest today and retrieved the time lapse camera that had filmed the nest for the past week. The camera took about 4,000 photo before it ran out of memory, but that was enough to record the event of the grouse chicks hatching.

May 26th, 10:51AM - None of the eggs have hatched.



May 26th, 12:05PM - The grouse is back sitting on the eggs.



May 26th, 2:14PM - The first chick appears.



May 26th, 3:07PM - The chick is back under the mother grouse and an empty egg shell is seen.



May 26th, 4:00PM - Three chicks next to the mother grouse.



May 27th, 9:01AM - A heavy rain overnight but the grouse hatched at least 9 chicks.



May 27th, 9:35AM - Mother grouse and the chicks leave the nest and don't return. In less than a day after hatching the grouse chicks are out of the nest.

Newborn Fawn

The spring rains have made the grass grow this year and I almost stepped on the newborn fawn as I was walking through a field at the cabin property.



I was able to walk around the fawn for a better view and got a few photos before the fawn took off for a new hiding place.

Silt Fence Maintenance

Another quiet day at the well pad except for a crew from Varsity Landscaping checking and repairing the silt fence.

Grouse Nest

Jason Abell managed to locate a grouse nest on his farm while fixing fences and shared the location with me. Unlike the geese on our pond, grouse are harder to find and even harder to photograph.



I have placed an automatic camera about 4 feet from the grouse nest and will try to get some photos of a nesting grouse and maybe some photos of the chicks.

Mapping the well site

Greenway Engineering was at the cabin today setting up a GPS base station at a known reference location. Using this known location and a GPS base station they will record location data around the well pad to create a 3D map of the completed site.



Recording GPS locations.

Pad Construction

The last of the construction equipment has been hauled off the site.



With the construction equipment gone the fuel tank is no longer needed.



The fuel tank is loaded on a truck and removed from the site.

The bears are back

A couple of the neighbors have seen a bear with cubs in the neighborhood within the last week. I placed a game camera at one of the bears favorite spots and got the following photos.



I will place some more cameras in this area and see if I can get some better photos.