Posts Tagged ‘newt’
Wildlife and Wildflowers at Parish Lake
The vast amounts of great sundew (Drosera anglica and hybrid D. x obovata) turn the bog west of the lake bright red. There is plenty of round-leaved sundew (D. rotundifolia) as well, but it is much shorter and less conspicuous.
On Saturday, July 2, I made the long drive up to Parish Lake to prehike it for a short trip I’m leading for the NPSO Annual Meeting. It was a really beautiful day, and it wasn’t spoiled by any mosquitoes. At around 3400′, it is actually somewhat late in the season here, and a lot of the flowers were finished. But there were still some things in bloom—notably the sundews, which are always the highlight of a trip to this cool bog. The wildlife and signs of their presence also made the trip worthwhile. Read the rest of this entry »
Exploring near Patterson Mountain
After all my exploring, I didn’t have much time left for Patterson, so I only went as far as the Lone Wolf Shelter meadow, where there were dozens of reblooming alpine laurel (Kalmia microphylla) flowers.
With so few flowers left to see, in late summer and fall I shift my focus over to exploring new sites. Earlier this summer when I was contemplating a trip to Patterson Mountain, I looked at the area on Google Earth and noticed an intriguing south-facing opening right by the road and a small wetland a bit farther east. Neither of these are visible from the road, and I’d never realized they were there. I didn’t manage to get up there at the time, but a couple of weeks ago (August 27), I set out to check these two sites out.
The first spot turned out to be even easier to access than I could have imagined. I parked at a wide spot along Road 1714 just a tenth of a mile past the old quarry. In only about 2 minutes, I popped out through the rhodendron-filled woods on the south side of the road into a steep, rocky meadow. I immediately spotted the almost white, dried leaves of silver lupine (Lupinus albifrons) as well as those of hotrock penstemon (Penstemon deustus)—this was certainly a promising sign! Although it’s not a very large meadow, I managed to spend a couple of hours taxing my brain trying to identify all the golden and dessicated remains of the now-ended blooming season. Read the rest of this entry »