May 26th Long Pond Botany & Phenology Walk (Recap)

[EwA]

Thanks for all who attended our event this past Sunday.

It was a small event this time, but for us it was then a lovely and relax casual walk. We managed to record the phenophases of our 2 Long Pond sites, as well as clarify that the lowbush blueberry is actually not that but possibly a Vaccinium pallidum.
We'll add the Medeola virginiana to the list of plants to follow on that first phenology site. 

Once we have Charlie's notes, and all our visual records on iNaturalist, we'll upload that info in our Long Pond sites journal. I'll probably have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind.

My personal highlight of the day was to see the flower of the wild sarsaparilla, and realize that its leaf is actually pinnate :-) The things we take for granted!

In terms of bird species occurrence (many heard / not seen, and many more missed), I recorded the following: If I missed any please do tell.

• Downy Woodpecker (Eastern)
• Eastern Wood-Pewee
• Blue Jay
• Black-capped Chickadee
• Tufted Titmouse
• White-breasted Nuthatch (Eastern): although its call puzzled us, and was fairly insistent
• Wood Thrush
• American Robin
• Gray Catbird
• Red-winged Blackbird (at least 2)
• Mallard (1 female)
• Common Grackle (1 seen, many more heard)
• Wilson's Warbler (heard)
• Scarlet Tanager (heard)
• Northern Cardinal (1 male)
• There was also this hawk that we saw on the west side of the pond over the pond: possibly a Sharp-shinned

In terms of bird species counts: it's a bit harder to establish as we were not focused on birds particularly, but musing instead. 

Our citizen science program is detailed > here.

All our events are listed > here. 

The next weekend event of the sort  (i.e., more casual than our regular fieldwork sessions) is at Bellevue Pond in a month. 

See you soon! - Claire