Sterling Marsh North

  Cathy and I managed to get a little hike in before the sky opened and poured water on everything. We hiked just north of where Loren and I went on Thursday. It had also rained before we got there, and the colors are always lovely and vibrant when things are wet.

We hiked past the northern portion of Sterling Marsh. This section is also covered with water lilies.

But the most interesting thing is this beaver lodge. I don't remember a lodge being here before. I wonder if this means we are going to start having problems with trail flooding. I guess we'll have to wait and see how the beaver think things should be altered. With that clear strip of open water, it sure looks like an active lodge.

The Bee Balm, AKA Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa was in bloom. I thought I was going to get a picture with a little butterfly on the blossom, but it flew away.

I did get a nice picture of a male Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly. The females have black bodies instead of the bright metallic blue-green of the males. We also saw a beautiful black and green dragonfly, but no picture of that. Sorry.

Like so many of my recent hikes, this was double duty for some trail work. We added a few stickers, and put this strip on the post at the 76th St junction with the spur to the trailhead so you can clearly tell where to go when you approach it from the south.

We were safely on the way home before the rain hit. The humidity was 72%, so the shorter hike was just fine. I was soaked through with sweat even though we didn't get rained on.

In other news: After I got home I did some more volunteer stuff and then buckled down to finish Chapter 47 of Dead Mule Swamp Singer.

My NCT miles for 2021 is at 355, Cathy is at 52.5 for Hike 100.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. 76th St to Jenks TH and back. 3 miles total

See Sterling Marsh Again

Summer 2019- Batting 1000

 
Summer has had one day so far this year to prove its intentions, and right now it's batting 1000. What a perfect day!

I started by hiking the Litchfield Nature Trail, which didn't even exist when I hiked this section of the NCT. It was all road walk then. Now there are almost 2 trail miles, including a backpacker tent site. How cool is that?



The Ebony Jewelwing Damselflies were out in abundance. The males have the blue bodies.



Wild morning glories in full bloom in some sunny places. Most of the trail was nicely shaded in the woods, however.



Walked that out and back, then ate some lunch and went to do the northern half of the Lost Nation State Game Area.

The northern section isn't nearly as hilly. At least the trail isn't. A lot of the trail follows long-abandoned roads (you can barely tell they were once roads, but nevertheless flatter.)

All of the bridges in Lost Nation are these squared logs. They would be tricky to get across in a full pack.



I met two different painted turtles today, sunning themselves in the trail. Both of them peed on me when I picked them up!



This is a wildlife opening within the SGA. But it allowed me to take a longer shot, so you can see what a beautiful day it was. Hope it was nice where you are too! The one pestilence of the day was deer flies, but I tied my bandana over my head so they didn't keep divebombing my hair.



Speaking of bandanas, you know I love clothes on the line. Passed this (Amish or Mennonite?) home with the clothes out, and I just loved the colorful display of bandanas.



Total miles hiked today, about 9. Celebration, ice cream!



Now I'm back in Ann Arbor, and need to get to sleep soon. Tomorrow is the big book vendor event in Troy. But what a great few days I've had!

North Country Trail, Hillsdale County, Michigan, Litchfield Nature Trail and Lost Nation State Game Area from Way Rd to MI 34, 9 miles out and back.

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Looking Homeward

 
There are a couple more interesting things from Dow Gardens, but I think it's time to return home for a while. First of all, let's have a show of hands from all those who thought I could refrain from playing with plants at home entirely. Yeah, I don't see any.

It's like this. The garden stores have now marked bedding plants down to 50%. So I came home with all these for only $6. I'll keep you posted on how it looks in a few weeks. This makes me smile every time I walk out the door.


Yesterday on my walk I watched some redtail hawks circling. They soar with wings flat, but this one was actively flying. Just luck I caught this picture.



Today, I drove to take a hike on the North Country Trail. Did six miles. The red pine plantation is always a magical place of light.



Looking down, there was a forest of moss sporangia just as dense as the pines on a smaller scale.



A male Ebony Jewelwing damselfly was playing hide and seek.



Of course, I see this huge burl every time I walk this section, but today I took its picture.



It seemed as if it might rain, so I hurried back. No rain, but the humidity was high and I was soaked with sweat, so hopped in the shower. The sky has now cleared and lovely cumulus clouds are building across my back yard.



The mulberry tree is really loaded this year. Even though most aren't ripe yet, the birds are already going nuts! I'm going to try to capture some for myself. Maybe tomorrow. Certainly this week.



In other news: I wrote a chapter in The Bigg Boss. I lamented over the fact that I accidentally overwrote all the edits I did the other day. I walked six miles on the North Country Trail (Hike 100 Challenge is at 34 miles). That doesn't seem like much, but it took all the time.

North Country Trail, north from Timber Creek to 8th Street and back- 6 miles total

	See Adventures on the Way Home See Ebony Jewelwing
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Mrs. Ebony Jewelwing

 
Remember last week I showed you the male ebony jewelwing damselfly?



Well, it's not a super good picture, but I got one of the female Calopteryx maculata.



At least you can clearly see the white spots on her wings. And note the "maculata" in the name? That means spotted, so that makes the scientific name sensible. Her body is plain black.

This is one of the really common damselflies. I wonder if I can get pictures of some of the little nervous ones next! At least with wildlife pictures one never runs out of possibilities.

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Ebony Jewelwing

 
This is one of the most common damselflies, but who wouldn't like its bright body and lovely name?

This is a boy. The girls don't have shiny blue-green bodies, but they do have a white spot on the wing.



You can tell damselflies from dragonflies because the damselflies rest with their wings along their bodies like this one. Dragonfly wings are always at right angles to their bodies. However, they are both in the order Odonata.

The ebony jewelwing is Calopteryx maculata.

Lots of work this week. Trying to get caught up!

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Dragonflies

Dragonflies are always really cool, and a couple of them held still to have their pictures taken.



I'm really sure of the ID on this one. It's called a Chalk-fronted Corporal. My dragonfly ID consists of looking at pictures in a book, but this one is pretty common. Sorry for the non-natural background, but it liked our bag. What can I say?



This one's identity I'm less sure of, but it seems right. This is called a Blue Dasber, but this is an immature male, so it's still brown. I got several nice pics of him as he perched on a weed near the pond of July 5. That all sounds right as the book says it perches on shrubs and vegetation beside ponds.

I sure think they are beautiful!