5-20 Today in my mowing, two clusters of several hundred minute spiderlings each mimicked seed heads on stalks of grass so convincingly that I nearly overlooked them. Only the fact that they were straw colored in a field where the grass seed heads were still green gave them away.

The spiderlings had tied off the grass stalks with silk, bowing their tips down to just below horizontal. Tight under the outer tip they clustered tightly in a nearly invisible web, abdomens out, heads in, legs tight to bodies. Each tiny straw colored seedlike abdomen marked with a black blotch near its tip. Several hundred of them formed a very convincing 'seed head' perhaps one-and-a-quarter inches long and three-eighths of an inch wide.

I tried to get a picture of them and in doing so I carelessly snagged a wispy strand of web. Instantly the spiderlings scattered to all points of the compass. An hour later they were once again clustered tightly where I first observed them.

I was unable to identify them...I was barely able to see any one individual. But I'm going to refer to them as Straw Colored Grass Seed Mimics. That name seems to capture their essence, and who can argue that?

John

5-18

Blue-eyed grass had one"eye" open this afternoon as if to watch the first white Admiral butterfly of the season waft overhead. Along the brook, Herb Robert displayed a few small pink flowers and in the thickets a Mockingbird stuttered and skipped as it mimicked half-a-dozen pirated songs. On many sunny banks and road shoulders Blackberries splashed stark white 5 petaled blossoms across the year's still fresh yellow-green foliage.

John

5-17

Clouds of yellow pollen exploded from the male cones on our Red Pine trees with every hint of breeze today. Meanwhile some Sycamores and Mulberries began producing new leaves to replace those touched by last week's frosts and here and there a Royal Fern showed shriveled brown where it should have sported a half developed crown. In the kitchen garden a House Wren scampered and flitted beneath the Hosta. And flowers on the south side of the Rhododendron bush began unfolding their magenta petaled splendor.

John

5-15

This morning Starry False Solomon's Seal, Common (AKA Tall) Buttercup and Bulbous Buttercup chose to start flowering and a House Wren moved back into the neighborhood and announced itself endlessly.

John

The black and white warbler with its see-saw high pitched call followed us along our walk on Partridge Road along with the veery. I love the rich downward spiraling sound interwoven with the wood thrush.

5-14

For the first time this season, a female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird joined the male at our nectar feeder. Along the West River, a Catbird worked at mimicking five or six different songs somehow selected from the ongoing chorus.

John

5-13

A Brown Thrasher quietly arrived in my yard today, while somewhere in the treetops a Great Crested Flycatcher endlessly announced its presence. Some of the new Locust leaves and the upper leaves on the Dog Bane plants were blackened by recent frosts, yet the season moves forward.

John

5-12

Today Bunchberry AKA Dwarf Cornel is in flower as is Pennsylvania bittercress. In midafternoon a smallish (perhaps young of the year) red fox carrying a large bird crossed Rte. 30 in front of my car. The fox struggled to keep the bird from dragging on the ground, a very small fox hauling a very large bird as best it could.

John

5/11/10 Every morning as I pass the East Dummerston School, I survey the trees a group of us have planted; today I got an extra visual treat: a small acer griseum (paperbark maple) provided a perch for an Eastern bluebird!

It was a cold day and I just poked my head outside the door and then I heard the burry sing-song or the robin; the scarlet tanager was back.

5-10

Late this afternoon I did a survey of the nearby woods and fields looking for any wildflowers that were newly in bloom and found only Sweet White Violet... and a coyote. The coyote did not seem even mildly surprised to see me, and trotted off only when I got within seventy or eighty feet.

John

5-9

Despite the chill winds today, Robin's Plantain and Marsh Blue Violets decided to open flowers. Most of the sedges are now also in flower, notably Carex Lupulina with its clusters of large sac-like female flowers topped by a single narrow spike of small male flowers.

John

5-7

On Black Mountain today fiercely predaceous and beautifully iridescent Six-Spotted Green Tiger Beetles scurried along the trail until my feet threatened and then they darted into the air more like wasps than the beetles they are.

Low on the mountain Common Yellowthroats called. Near the summit Pine Warblers took over the airwaves. In the thickets Ovenbirds made their presence known.

Starflowers were the botanical story of the day. On the summit a few Mountain Laurel blossoms were open. Solomon's Seal was also flowering.

Back at home, the first American Copper butterflies of the season added glitter to the back lawn blanket of green.

John

5-6

A male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird made 6 or 8 early morning visits to the nectar feeder outside my kitchen window this AM. By 7:00 it was gone - perhaps moving further north - but it's good to know that within days that nectar feeder will once again be jealously guarded by a resident hummer!

John

5-5

In the woods today, Indian Cucumber root was in flower. The small greenish-yellow, dangling flowers have - when you tip them skyward - rather startling red stamens. In the fields the first Eastern Black Swallowtail butterflies teetered on the breezes while searching for their host plants, members of the carrot family including Queen Anne's Lace.

John

5-4

It was a day of "probables". a smallish orange and black checkered butterfly flitting across our field I tentatively identified as a Pearly Cresentspot. The first of the year here. An unimpressive little yellow-flowered plant I decided was Hooked Buttercup (Ranunculus recurvatus). Probably. Some sightings just don't lend themselves to absolute certainty.

John

5-3

A few Kingbirds and Baltimore Orioles have found their way back to Vermont, and Oven birds are calling from the woods behind my house.

Common Sulphur butterflies (medium sized, yellow bordered with black) seem to be dividing the fields into Lepidoteran fiefdoms, and the first of the Tiger Swallowtail butterflies (large, yellow with black stripes, tailed) can be found in warmer locations.

Bugle (an alien member of the mint family) in putting out powder blue flowers in stark contrast to its leaves which are often bronze or deep purple.

John

This gay wings, swaying in the breeze, was a delight to watch in the woods of Brattleboro.

5-1

Today a Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) found its way to Dummerston. Painted Ladies are long distance migrants originating in the Southwest - often in the Sonora Desert. No Painted Ladies overwinter here: no adults, no eggs, no larvae and no pupae. Cold would kill any that tried. This butterfly had to come a long way to get here.

Until recently scientists thought that the Painted Lady migration was one way, and that these wondrous genetic lines would end with the first hard frost of next fall. Now, however, a reverse migration is believed to occur with at least some of the Painted Ladies born in the North and the East making the trip back to the Southwest.

Hopefully not for a while!

John

Did I prevent a murder?

On Wednesday around 9 PM I drove from Route 5 up East-West Road. My headlights picked out a small animal that raced across the road in front of me. Far enough in front that I wasn't in danger of hitting it. What was it? From the outline, a cat. The cat headed through the grass towards one of the homes. Just as I was taking this in, I saw another outline of an animal, more or less where the cat had been. This animal bounded onto the edge of the road and then into the grass of the shoulder and then bounded back out. At first I thought it was a fox. Maybe it was a fisher? Maybe I came just at the right time to give the cat a chance to escape.

Who knows?