[ValleyNature] (no subject)

[James W. Wolford]

MAY 15, 2010 - Joint Cape Split field trip for Halifax Field  
Naturalists and Blomidon Naturalists Society, led by Lesley Butters  
(HFN) and Jim Wolford (BNS), with ample help by Bernard Forsythe,  
Richard Stern, and Donna Crossland (all BNS).  Others I knew in the  
group were Jim Medill and his wife and Stephanie Robertson and ? from  
Halifax and David Dermott from Wolfville Ridge.  I think there were a  
couple of others too.  Our group was small probably partly because of  
the forecast of rain, but we lucked out a bit by not getting any rain  
until very late morning when we were almost to the Tip.  Then it  
rained through our lunch under spruces and when we started to walk  
back, but the rain stopped for most of our return trip.  And the  
usually muddy parts of the trail were drier than I have ever seen  
them and easily traversed.

Nancy Nickerson of BNS had chosen to do a much earlier walk, and we  
met her coming back shortly after we had started.  She had spotted a  
pair of blue-headed or solitary vireos at a very unfinished new nest  
in a fir and left us a note on an adjacent tree-trunk.  We didn't see  
any vireos there but did spot the nest after Nancy described where it  
was -- it looked to me like a few early fern fronds that had been  
laid as a possible foundation, but perhaps they had decided to  
actually build elsewhere?

I'll ask Richard Stern to embellish this preliminary list of birds  
heard or otherwise encountered: some I remember were purple finch and  
white-throated sparrow at the trailhead house, black-throated green  
warblers, black-and-white warblers, yellow-rumped or myrtle warblers,  
northern parula warbler, ovenbird, blue-headed vireo, winter wren  
(about 3 were heard), robin, downy woodpecker, song sparrow, mourning  
dove, blue jays, black-capped chickadees, herring and great black- 
backed gulls, double-crested cormorants, common eider (1 male).

Nancy Nickerson saw 2 male black-throated blue warblers in the  
hardwood and flower areas.

Lots of red squirrels seen and heard, and their signs were   
everywhere, but no signs of other wild mammals.

Flowers encountered were very abundant, and we were happy to see  
oodles of spring beauties, many of which were thankfully open, plus  
lots of red trilliums (a.k.a. wake robins or stinking Willies or "wet  
beagle flowers" (Bernard's suggestion)) and perhaps a dozen or more  
individual trilliums that were whitish or in between red and whitish.

Other flowers seen were lots of toothwort and rosy twisted-stalk,   
plus alder, goldthread, small-flowered crowfoot or wood butterup,  
baneberry sp., American fly-honeysuckle, blue violets of a couple of  
species, wild strawberry, red-berried elder, bunchberry (just  
starting), and common dandelion.

Flower-buds: wild or false lily-of-the-valley, false Solomon's-seal,  
wild sarsaparilla or Aralia.

Just leaves: Clintonia or blue-bead lily, wood sorrel,

Ferns: many of these were quite advanced in this year of very early  
Spring events.  Identified fern species included ostrich fern very  
tall fiddleheads (hot news concerns their richness in antioxidants  
and omega-3 fatty acids), Christmas fern, Braun's holly fern,  
cinnamon fern, interrupted fern, sensitive fern, wood or spinulose  
fern (now a complex of species), beech fern, marginal fern?, and lots  
of lady ferns.

Mosses: Donna and Stephanie had recently done a workshop on  
bryophytes and forced a couple of genus names on us.

Finally, a single large living land snail (Cepaea) was found on the  
path, someone mentioned having seen some bumble bees, and only a few  
fungi were noted, including a bright white, large, flat crust on the  
cut edge of a stump.

Cheers from Jim in Wolfville
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