Evidence of Deer

Color is past prime for maples but the oaks are coming on

Locust torn to shreds

scrape at the camping fire pit

Buddy points on a scraped aspen

We had a very strong fox scent in the lower meadow this morning.

Early Summer Flora and Fauna of the Barony

This year in Pennsylvania we are having a bumper crop of 17 year locust. Apparently every year there is a hatch of a different brood of these cicadas, but this brood is typically has a large population of insects hatch out, and sure enough, this year is no exception. There are red-eyed locust, about 2 1/2 inches long. Their call is muted from the normal screeching of a cicada that you hear in the heat of the summer. In fact, this cicada brood sounds to me like the "death ray" from War of the Worlds, sort of metallic and with a slight wavering tone. Anyway, we have these little critters flying about and crawling all over the trees, looking for a mate. They only have a life-cycle that lasts about 4 weeks, so they have to get busy quickly, and that is why they give off their call almost 24 hours a day. There are some times, during the middle of the night and even in the daytime during a particularly cloudy or rainy period that the calls are silent, but otherwise their calls are a background noise. The Baroness has been on a mission to kill off as many as she can (I guess she doesn't want to see as many in 17 years). It is very easy to catch the cicadas as they wait on the branches of trees, looking for a date. In the attached picture you can see 7 cicadas on a dogwood tree branch, just about at eye level (notice the drops of water on the leaves of the trees--we had a pretty good rain last night and this morning the cicadas were out on the wet leaves). If you are gentle and quick, you could probably catch each one of the 7 cicadas you see in this picture. As long as you don't shake the tree branch and move quickly, the cicadas don't react. In fact, just walking around in our forest and meadow you are likely to have one of these guys land right on you--which isn't all that much fun. They can't hurt you but they sure can scare you.

The down hill side of the Toy Shed is filling with wild flowers, some native and some not so. This coryopsis and bee are my new screensaver.


BT did a good job on the gypsy moths as far as we can tell now. We have a few totally defoliated trees and many are raggedy, but we don't hear the constant rain of their frass and when I go on my cicada stomping walk-about, I only find a handful of gyp-cats. Hurrah! The Bt didn't get every caterpillar because we still have butterflies.



A new bird for the year (and life) list: a hooded warbler. He sang to me for 15 minutes just off the upper Jennifer Trail. At one point he flitted off to catch a moth and was about 10 feet from me almost on the ground.

Since we weeded yesterday, this guy is helping us keep the small things at bay.