Wild Woods

Hot, heavy, humid air; smelling of the green Woods.

This morning I returned to the Woods to see what several weeks of the summer had changed.
In the northeast Woods, the trail-sides were grown up thickly with Elephantopus, elephant's foot beginning to set seed. Along the Main SW trail, there were thick stands of knee or waist-high Polygonum ladies thumb. The Carex sedge around the NW Pond was lush. Grasses filled other trail segments around the Tree Loop.
I took a chain saw to cut away dead-fall and blow-down blocking trails from the past two months of neglect. I'll need to finish clearing a few more of these later by the Catalpa trio; near the SW Gate; and south of the West Dune trail.

It was what I had hoped for the summer. An undisturbed time for plants and creatures to renew the Woods, rebuild roots, forage without interruption. I saw four box turtles: two together at Elm Bridge. The Wash there was empty, but still damp. Two more turtles along the Trans OW trail. There were two white-tailed deer: one west of the Elm Bridge( curious yearling, in thick understory hesitated while I sang to it) and one north of the North Loop (snorted and ran south).
The East Pond was almost gone - open water down to the size of a wash basin was guarded by a libellulid skimmer on the post. The West Pond was way down but the surface area was still two thirds normal. Nice white and pink Hibiscus shrub blooming there and two Anax junius Aeshnids were busy chasing each other. A squirrel by the water, but no sign of the turtles.
The Wash still had water at the old tank, but none at Isld Crossing.
I found a new species of fern for the Woods (on the levee trail?) Yellow tiger swallowtail floated upslope from the NW Pond.
There is an Agelenid funnel web spider population explosion in the usual SW corner. It would be interesting to trace the north and east extent of this and figure out why they are, where they are.
Here and there around the Woods, there are green pecans and green persimmons coming down with squirrels or other rodents chewing on the green husk. Along the Main SW trail, there are several to many young boxelders establishing - a few inches high with 3-5 leaves. The combination of rain and dry must have been just right. Along the western fence Campsis trumpet vines are blooming or beginning to drop their orange flowers; and white Clematis flowers are still there.
One last treat was along the S Boundary Cutoff trail. Old, burled horizontal trunk of elm 36 had broken down and revealed a long-used wood rat or cotton rat nest stocked with small sticks and holding one skull of a opossum or raccoon(?)
This is going to be a good year for the Woods.