The Marsh Project Week #33

Starting Friday evening, the skies opened up and it rained, and it rained, and it rained, and then it rained some more, and it didn't really stop raining until Saturday evening.  Friday afternoon I came home from work, took a look at the weather forecast and the sky, and decided I had a few hours before the rain showed up- and an hour later, I was scurrying back towards my car, sopping wet and hoping that my phone and camera were not getting drenched inside my backpack.

Finally the rain stopped, and after receiving notification that the trails were once again open, I headed out this afternoon to see if anything would come out to enjoy the cooler weather.  The skies were still overcast and the trails were muddy, but phone and camera had both survived.  I wasn't the only one who was in the mood for a hike; I saw a few people and quite a bit of wildlife.  As I reached the boardwalk portion of the trail, some people coming the other way informed me that there was a heron standing very close to the boardwalk, and sure enough- not only was there a great blue heron, but an osprey landed momentarily on the top of a tree right near the boardwalk, then took off again.

The green tree frogs were out in force.  As usual, once I saw one, I saw several, including one that popped out at me as I walked slowly down the boardwalk.  Usually these little frogs pick green stems or leaves to rest on, and they blend in so well you can walk by several and not see anything unless you are purposefully looking- but this frog picked a contrasting background.

I also saw this very large spider.  Honestly, I am not really a spider person- I respect the role they play in the ecosystem, but I've walked into many a web on the trail and had the occasional unsuspecting spider end up crawling around in my hair or on the back of my shirt as a result of my unintentional web destruction.  Spider ID is not something I've mastered, but I'm guessing that this big spider might be a kind of wolf spider.   Unlike the tree frog, the spider blended in very well to its surroundings, and if I'd been walking quickly I would have walked right by it without realizing it was even there.

The rain had also brought the mushrooms out- the log these fungi were growing out of was surrounded by poison ivy, and while I admire spiders even though they're not my favorite, I've had too many bad run-ins with the PI- so I took the best photo I could get from a respectful distance. It seems to be an unwritten rule somewhere that the really good fungi must be surrounded by a impenetrable wall of poison ivy.

As I left the large blind and headed back towards the trailhead and my car, I heard a rustling to my left.  When I turned and looked, I saw three raccoons- two on the ground and one about six feet up in a tree. All three raccoons turned and watched me watching them.  After a minute or so, the raccoon in the tree resumed climbing upward, and the raccoons on the ground scampered away.

Seen on the trails: green heron, great blue heron, snowy egret, great egret, belted kingfisher, osprey,  yellow-crowned night heron, scissor-tailed flycatcher, wild turkey, Eastern phoebe, red bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, common green darner, common whitetail, monarch butterfly, Gulf fritillary, variegated fritillary, American snout, green tree frog, wolf spider, gilled mushrooms, horned passalus beetle, armadillo, raccoon.