June at Burgeson Wildlife Sanctuary

I returned to Burgeson Sanctuary yesterday with my friend Ness and did a bit of June botanizing. This place is really impressive. Wide, easily walked trails took us through a variety of habitats and we were able to see wildflowers in bloom ranging from the common daisy to the pink lady-slipper. In addition to the flowers, we were delighted to see numerous pairs of eyes popping up through the duckweed on the ponds--green and bull frogs singing to the evening breeze.

I had the pleasure of meeting Gib Burgeson, for whom the sanctuary is named, many years ago at the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage (which was one of his numerous projects). A distinguished botanizer, he loved sharing his own love of nature with others. His efforts at education and land conservation live on after his passing in 1997 on his 100th birthday.
http://www.allegany-nature-pilgrimage.org/Allegany_Nature_Pilgrimage/History.pdf

There is an arboretum on the sanctuary dedicated to Ted Grisez, whom I met on Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania trips.
From the Jamestown Audubon Society's website:

"The Arboretum was started in 1980 by a group of dedicated Audubon volunteers headed by retired forester Ted Grisez. Over the years, trees have been added to the collection so that it now contains over 60 trees. Most of the species can be found in either Chautauqua or Warren counties or both."

So without further ado, I present some June wildflowers of Burgeson Wildlife Sanctuary.

Lazy August Saturday on French Creek

Seven of us (Sawyer George, Laura, Ed, Rick, Tom, Charlie and I, plus Maggie ) gathered yesterday to paddle from Cochranton to Utica on French Creek. Six of us put in on private property (with permission) a few hundred yards upstream of the access area. That allowed us to run the chute and standing waves before we picked up our new kayaker, Tom, at the access.

Immediately below the bridge in Cochranton, we saw an Osprey flying upstream. We speculated on how few of these birds we've seen this summer, and our expert birder Tom suggested that it might be because of all the rain and the muddiness of the water, which makes sighting the fish difficult.

The water level was as close to perfect as possible: high enough to move along at a good current but not so high as to be too pushy and dangerous in a strainer situation. Many of us love to paddle the back channels, which is where the strainers might be encountered on this section of the creek. At one point, several of our group took a rather shallow back channel and the rest of us went past it because we saw them out of their boats in the shallows. When we arrived at the bottom of the channel, there was no sign of the others. We paddled up the channel till we found them on the other side of a snag, loafing. Suddenly we heard a loud splash: Sawyer George took a swim! I knew he would stand up in his canoe one time too many! Once he was back in his boat, they headed down the other back channel and avoided the snag, meeting us at the convergence.

Among the birds we saw in addition to the Osprey were Rough-winged and Tree Swallows, Red-tail Hawks, Green (juvenile) and Great Blue Herons, many Cedar Waxwings, geese and others. Ed lives near the take-out and gave us an update on all the eagle nests in the area, including one that came down this year after the young fledged.

August wildflowers were in full bloom and included ironweed, Joe-pye weed, wild dodder, boneset, goldenrod, various milkweeds, phlox, jewelweed--both orange(Spotted) and yellow (Pale), sunflowers and coneflowers, virgin's bower clematis, stinging nettle, enchanter's nightshade and many more.

We stopped for lunch at Deer Creek at the scout camp. Ed led us on a short walk to see Guyasutha's grave, and I snapped a few photos of the wildflowers.

As we paddled along after lunch, listening to the silence....kersplash! Yes, Sawyer George was back in the water. I think this time it was on purpose because he mumbled something about its being so hot.

All too soon the take-out appeared. Laura voiced what we were all thinking: Will someone pick me up in Franklin so I don't have to take out yet?

postscript: Ed told us that the access area in Utica is no longer owned by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. They turned it over to the PA Fish and Boat Commission. So now you need a boat sticker to use this access area. Yet another good access falls victim to the sticker people.

Wildflowers Along the River

Although the primary purpose of our overnight canoe trip on the Allegheny River was to get into nature and camp, I quickly discovered that my personal primary purpose became botanizing. The summer wildflowers are in full glory now. And as the water slipped by quietly under my canoe, the changing scenery on shore frequently drew me for a closer look.

We put in Saturday at our house and set forth downstream. Of course the first wildflowers to catch my attention were in my own backyard. On the riverbank I found developing brown-eyed Susan, bedstraw, several varieties of wild sunflowers, lupine that I planted this spring, wild dodder and the horrid invasive, Lythrum--purple loosestrife. There are many others that I have yet to ID, but I'll get out there sometime soon with my Newcomb's guide and check on those.

As we moved down the river, we noticed many stands of smartweed. The white flower spikes tipping over at the tops, weaving in the wind, reminded me of a drunkard leaning wobbly against a light pole. Spots of black snakeroot dotted the banks. Water stargrass sent their leaves to the surface, floating and holding up the buds, soon to bloom. Monkey flower bloomed on the islands, their funny faces dancing on the breezes. And small groups of the ubiquitous purple loosestrife in various bays and inlets were insidiously weaving their roots into the quagmire. When I saw more wild dodder near some loosestrife, I began to wonder if the dodder would take a hold of Lythum and parasitize it, causing a decline in the robustness of this invasive. I'm going to experiment by placing some of my own dodder on my Lythrum and see what happens.

I was surprised to see goldenrods already in bloom, rather early this year--although they may have been a species that blooms earlier than the typical August and September varieties. Next time I will take my field guide along!

We also saw many birds on this trip, as is usual on the Allegheny River. Several eagles put in an appearance, many cedar waxwings danced out from the treetops chasing insects, red-tail hawks circling on the updrafts as were the turkey vultures, redwing blackbirds bringing life to the shoreweeds, common yellowthroats calling "witchity witchity withchity," great-horned and barred owls hooting at night. While investigating a rock formation on the riverside, Charlie saw two juvenile wood ducks who swam into a rock cave upon his approach. Although the photo is rather grainy because I had to push the speed to ISO 1600 to compensate for such darkness, we were able to get enough details to ID them using the Sibley Guide to Birds.

On Sunday as we moved on down the river, distant thunder quickly became an imminent threat. As we passed the Hunter's Station Golf Course, their horn blew, calling all golfers off the course. We headed to shore as the rain pelted us and took shelter under a deadfall tree. Unfortunately, the rain in our eyes blinded us to the stinging nettle we were rushing through. But, fortunately, there was an abundance of jewelweed under the deadfall and we were able to stanch the pain with the crushed stems of Mother Nature's first aid plant. It really does work!

The pelting rain put an end to my botanizing. I took out at the golf course and waited for Charlie to paddle the rest of the way to the car, parked in President, PA. He found me a couple of hours later, holding my saturated little dog and swatting biting flies in the parking lot (where were those cedar waxwings). Another good canoeing story to tell around a future campfire!